


Gone Native

by Dirtyhands



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5327276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dirtyhands/pseuds/Dirtyhands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something strange happens in the middle of battle, and Steve has to adjust to his reality changing again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Note: I don't seem to have long** **uninterrupted chunks of time to write lately. So I'm going with something I can put down in shorter bits. I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, but I had this idea itching around so I scratched it. We'll see where it ends up. This will not be a big ole epic, just a little adventure.**

* * *

"Thor, Tony! The portal casters are in the park. West side of the green. Focus on them!" Steve yelled into his comm, over the sounds of people screaming.

It was aliens again, but they didn't look like aliens. They looked human. They'd appeared out of nowhere in every major city of the world, and all the humans of Earth could do was fight. There were no space ships, no plasma cannons, no energy weapons. Just strange, aggressive people speaking a fluid, clicking language. People who wanted them dead, or at least enslaved.

Steve, Tony, Thor, Sam, and Rhodey had taken to the air for advantage over the ground battle. Then, the portals started. Several times, Steve had almost been caught in the shining silvery pools that shimmered open in midair in front of him. Thor had almost lost Mjolnir to one, but he'd called the hammer back an instant before the portal closed. Tony apparently had some means to avoid the portals because more than once, Steve had seen Iron Man veer off course suddenly right before a portal appeared in front of where he would have been.

The invaders were radiating out from an apparent point of origin in the park, and spreading in a general advance north, methodically overwhelming block by block of terrified people. The local National Guard and Coast Guard units were trying to hold ground until the full force of the military could be engaged. It was a mess. The Avengers and several unknown enhanced people were doing all they could to defend everyone.

There'd been no communication and no diplomacy. The invaders had streamed into the street in the tens of thousands, by some still mysterious means, probably the silvery portals. They'd started exterminating New Yorkers as if the streets were a medieval battlefield. They only used bladed weapons, but people were dying by the thousands, mostly men, or anyone who tried to fight. They were almost as eager to kill women, but they usually left children alone. The elderly were ignored.

Steve braced on the deck of his Chitauri glider and spun about as quickly as he could do so and still keep control of the craft. He had to cover for Tony and Thor while they neutralized the portal casters. Portals seemed to be the invaders' main advantage.

Mjolnir flew again and again and Tony was probably expending all the munitions his Iron Man suit carried.

"The portal casters die well enough," Thor said.

" _If_ you poke enough holes in them. Tough bastards! I'm expended. Rhodey!" Tony exclaimed.

Colonel Rhodes swooped in to take Tony's place while Tony flew to the tower to re-equip his suit.

The fight was in the streets, in the park, in buildings, on vessels in the river, on the bridges. The only place it wasn't was in the air. Civilians were pouring out onto rooftops. Steve knew that meant the buildings were being taken from the ground floor, then up. People were either in shock or panicked.

He threw his shield at an angle to take out what appeared to be a leader of sorts of the invading force. He arced his throw so that the shield would be where he wanted it when his glider came around for the catch. Steve extended his arm as he banked the glider. The enemy leader's head was no longer attached to his body.

"Portal casters are almost-" Rhodey said.

Steve felt a sliver of coldness, and whatever Colonel Rhodes was going to say cut out abruptly as the comms went dead.

His vision went white and he felt weightless, but his battle adrenaline forced any disorientation from his mind in an instant. The shield didn't return to his hand as he expected, so he looked to find it somewhere down in the chaos on the ground.

"Shit!" Steve exclaimed.

He banked the glider with a hard lean just before he could be swallowed into the leafy branches of a huge tree. Leaves and twigs scraped against the bottom of the glider, and Steve was startled that a tree so large and tall could suddenly be anywhere in the city.

The complete silence finally caught his attention as soon as he was clear of the tree. Steve looked around to see how he'd gotten so far off course. And he kept looking. His eyes scanned to the horizon in every direction. His glider slowed to a hover as Steve tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

Below him was nothing but forest. Thick, deep green forest that looked wild and tangled. The tree he'd almost been swallowed by wasn't the only large one. There were small clearings below that showed meadow grass, and more normal sized trees of all kinds, and dead, skeletal tree snags sticking up among the giant trees. His heart was pounding in his ears, and his breaths huffed loudly, which was normal for hard combat.

There were no buildings, and no streets. No people, no invaders, no structures of any sort. Just the endless green of forest all around. A slight crackling sound got his attention and he snapped his head around to see a silvery line in the air behind him. Immediately, he raced the glider to a less side-on vantage point, but the shimmering portal was closing from oval to linear quickly. Panic spiked more adrenaline into his blood, and he made a fast run at the closing portal, but it was already too late.

Steve had to bank aside as the last of the portal flashed like a knife blade in the sun before it disappeared entirely. The right rear corner of the glider deck was sliced off with laser precision as it touched the last wisp of the portal.

"God, no!" Steve said with fervent dread.

In his gut, and in some vague place in his mind, he knew he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. He had to try to communicate, anyway.

"Tony. Thor. Clint. Anybody, come in," Steve said.

He'd never needed to before, but he pressed his comm unit more firmly into his ear, as if that would help.

The comm unit was as dead as if he had a pebble stuck in his ear. He turned it off, then back on, and scanned through channels. There was nothing.

"Jarvis?" Steve asked.

Jarvis was satellite linked to their comm system, and should be able to hear him anywhere in the world. Or anywhere in atmosphere and a good distance beyond.

"Jarvis, come in!" Steve barked.

Nothing.

He looked up at the sky as if he could find the satellites that should be transmitting the communications. Another oddity became clear to him. There was no air traffic. Not even a con trail. He took the glider up to five hundred feet, well above the treetops, and the sky opened up until he could see the slight curve of the earth. There was no air traffic. Only a graceful line of white cranes flew above the trees to the Northeast, the birds in no hurry to get where they were going.

Steve took a moment to assess his situation. Apparently he'd flown right into a portal. But as far as he knew, there was nowhere he could have been transported to that air traffic or con trails wouldn't be visible across a big enough slice of sky. They'd been in the African Congo once, and he'd seen con trails across the sky whenever there was a break in the overhead tree canopy.

A breath huffed out of him. It was the last moment he'd allow himself to feel panic or dread. There was no one and nothing. No threat. So, he shut his eyes and breathed deep until his heart and respirations slowed. The glider he stood on dipped and floated on the breeze. There was the cawing of crows somewhere in the forest below him, faint from the distance of his altitude.

Crows. Crows were familiar. So were the white cranes.

_Start with what you know_ , _no matter how simple_. Steve reminded himself.

The urgency of returning to his friends and to the battle pulled at him, but he pushed it aside. There was no way to do that unless he could find a way back. And to find a way back, he had to know where he'd been sent to through the portal.

Steve looked around and glided back down to the tree he'd almost run into. His perfect memory served him well to orient him with the natural objects he'd already noticed. The tall, gray tree snag shaped like a question mark wasn't far from what he was looking for. Close as he could tell, Steve got himself back to the exact spot where he'd first been when he'd felt the flash of cold and the comms had gone silent.

Oak. Hickory. Sycamore. Pine. Maple. There were many trees he recognized, like the crows and cranes, so he was fairly sure he wasn't on a different planet in a different realm. Down among the treetops, everything smelled green, like damp earth, trees, and sunbaked grasses. But the breeze blew a hint of salty sea air to him, coming from the East.

The weather and the light were different, as was the air temperature. When he'd been fighting before he'd gone through the portal, it had been late afternoon, and the sky was gray and threatening rain. Wherever he was now, it was midday and the sky was blue with only a few wispy high clouds. The air was warm, and it felt like summer. For it to be midday now, but late afternoon a few minutes ago, he'd have to be West of home, somewhere over the Pacific.

Things weren't making sense. On a hunch, Steve mentally marked where he'd emerged into this place, then used the glider to gain altitude. He got as near to vertical as he could go and still maintain his stance on the glider deck. Tony had replaced the Chitauri indicators with standard American analog instruments on Steve's request, so Steve watched the compass and altimeter.

There was a river gleaming to the East. Still, he gained altitude, to see the forest beyond the river. There were large wooded islands, and beyond that, a coastline and presumably, an ocean. The white cranes he'd seen earlier were joining a massive group of other cranes nested in a coastal marsh.

Higher and higher Steve rose, and his instincts told him to watch for other aircraft which might be hostile, but there was still only him in the sky. As he rose up, the air got colder and the curve of the earth was more pronounced. He looked down at the land receding below him.

Things were starting to look familiar. The Jersey coast. The Hudson. Long Island.

All of it covered in thick forest that stretched inland for miles and miles, until he couldn't see beyond the horizon. Still no buildings, no roads, no aircraft in the sky, and not a single boat out at sea. A mind-warping sense of surrealism washed over him.

This was home. He'd come out of the portal not far from where he'd gone in, maybe a few miles inland in New Jersey. Steve took the glider down at a fast, steep angle, and the usually silent craft made whistling sounds at the back, where the deck was damaged from being cut by the portal. Down, and down, with his eyes tracking one spot all the while.

Steve set the glider down on a somewhat familiar rocky outcrop he could see through the trees. Birds startled up from the vegetation around him, and a deer perked its head, flagged its tail, and bounded off through the underbrush.

If he was really home, he'd be parked in Central Park. But there was nothing except rampant wilderness towering around him. Two butterflies dithered around each other, then gave up their dancing to settle on a tiny purple flower.

He knew where he was. Just not when.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve stubbornly kept his communication device in his ear and powered on as he glided slowly through the wilds of what should be Manhattan. It was confusing, with everything covered in forest. He kept rising above the trees to get a view of the coastline so he'd know where he was.

There was no seawall, and no dock. No harbor as he knew it. What had been sharp manmade lines to him when he woke up this morning was now windswept and feral beach or marsh. Only the general shape of the coastline helped. He knew the city had changed the land under it over the years, but he'd never realized how much. If he hadn't had the glider to get up high, he wouldn't have a clue where he was.

When he was certain that he was where Avengers tower should be, he set the glider down. It was a rough spot strewn with stones and overgrown with brush and brambles. The trees weren't as large here because of the rocky soil.

Steve stepped off the glider, irrationally concerned that he'd be left without it if he walked away from it. The small craft hovered steady and level over the small boulders. His uniform boots crunched into leaves and undisturbed forest detritus. He took a few steps to where it wasn't so rocky and used his boot to scuff aside the natural mess on the ground.

Loose black soil was exposed. Insects crawled away from the area he was clearing. Steve used sweeps of his feet to expose the dirt in a broad area. There was nothing but soil, pebbles, insects and plant matter. There were no artifacts of a once great civilization. If he was sent into the future, even several thousand years into the future, there should be bits of glass, or reddish brown flakes of rusted iron, or broken pieces of concrete or stone tile. Farther and farther in a straight line as wide as his stance, Steve cleared off the ground where there should have been evidence of the city of New York if he'd been sent into the near future.

There was nothing. It was like New York had never been here. That meant he was very, very far into the future, after some catastrophic failing of the human species, likely more than ten thousand years. Or it meant that he was at least a few hundred years into the past. He didn't think he was millions of years away from his own time because he recognized the tree and animal species he'd seen. Most importantly, a deer still looked like a deer, the place wasn't covered in primitive palm trees, and there were no dinosaurs.

Steve glanced at the sun through the treetops, and pulled back the sleeve of his uniform to check his watch. It read 1832hrs. About suppertime, if he was home and not embroiled in a street battle. November thirtieth. The sweat on his brow from the muggy heat told him the date was wrong, too. If it was a little after noon as the sun indicated, maybe an hour since he'd gotten here, then he had several hours until dark.

He walked back to the glider and sat on the side kickboard while he emptied out his pockets and gear belt. He had four knives and two compasses, one of them in the display of the glider. He had his sidearm and six magazines of ammunition. There was a small first aid kit in an inside pocket of his uniform jacket which contained various useful things. In the two narrow compartments hidden in the deck of the glider, he had a one liter bottle of water, a flare kit, a hundred-foot length of strong, thin rope and several cubes of explosive and the detonators to go with them.

The glider didn't need fuel. It had a solid-state propulsion system that Tony was giddily working on figuring out. Or Tony had figured it out thousands of years ago. Or Tony would figure it out sometime in the next few thousand years.

Steve sat on the edge of his glider and huffed a laugh.

After that one, another sarcastic, nasty laugh bubbled up behind it.

Ending up in a different time was starting to become a theme. Maybe the fates had decided that since he now had so many more physical advantages than he'd been born with, it was only fair to muck the rest of his life up in compensation. He'd been starting to feel comfortable in the twenty-first century, so it was time to pull up roots again, and blink off to somewhere else, eh? Maybe he'd be here for a decade or so, just long enough to grow a truly impressive beard, and then he'd wake up on a base on Mars or in the asteroid belt, surrounded by tech so advanced that it took more evolved humans to operate it.

He felt his mind starting to crack at the injustice of it all, at the sheer uncertainty and powerlessness he felt. Being tossed around in time like a box of rocks on a rough ride was really starting to take chunks out of his humanity. First he'd lost Peggy and Buck and the Commandos. Now, it was time to let go of Tony and Nat and Clint and Thor and-

"RRagh!" Steve shouted angrily.

Doves and unseen small creatures moved off in fright at his raw outburst. His fists clenched on his bent knees. He was breathing hard again, and he let it happen. There was a possibility that he was the only human on the planet. If that was true, then he wouldn't have to worry about getting close enough to new friends to miss them when he lost them.

He let himself sit and feel sore at the world for five minutes. Then, he re-packed what gear he had. He took off his fingerless leather gloves and stored them in a compartment. He drank the liter of water and tucked the empty bottle in with his gloves. He moved the rope over to the left side compartment with the explosives so he would have an empty place to store food if he found any.

Already, with a few moments of calm and a drink, Steve was feeling better. He wasn't going to give up. Maybe this wasn't permanent. Maybe Jane and Thor could get Heimdall to take a look around and they'd see exactly where and when he was. Maybe they'd fart around in the labs for a few months until they found a way to open another portal to get him home. It was possible that they could capture and intimidate one of the portal casters and have him out of here and home by bedtime tonight.

Steve Rogers didn't live on 'maybe' or on possibilities. He knew what he was going to do. He was going to establish water, shelter, and food, in that order. And then he was going to use the glider to find out _when_ he was in the world. It was a good thing he'd been an interested student of more than just military history. Once he found out when he was, then he'd come up with a more long term plan.

With a short term plan decided, Steve almost stood up and took off to go find water. Then, he hesitated. He stepped off the glider again and knelt where he figured the tower should be. He wasn't sure, but he was probably at least where the correct city block was, because the view of Hudson Bay at the correct altitude looked right for where his bedroom window used to be. Or would someday be.

Steve stacked five stones in a cairn atop a boulder. It wouldn't mean anything to a single creature other than him, but felt the urge to do it, so he did.

_I'm a man, dammit, not a mindless, helpless animal. Maybe I can't build a skyscraper today, but I was sure as hell here._

* * *

By the time it was sunset, Steve had found a clear stream to refill his bottle, hacked a sapling almost clean through so that it was leaned over as a ridge pole for his thatch shelter, and he had two rabbits roasting over a small fire.

After his mind was calm and straight enough to notice the details of his environment, he had decided it was sometime in Mid-June. A lady from the botanical society had taken him and a bunch of at-risk kids on a " _Wild City_ " tour once, and he remembered that the tiny purple flowers he was seeing all around bloomed in June. So, at sunset, before the bright colors faded from the sky, he set his time piece to 2030hrs. It wouldn't be perfect, but he was going to have to learn to let go of a lot of things he was used to.

The mosquitoes were bad, but his Captain America uniform was too thick for the little beasts to penetrate. He stood near enough to the fire that the smoke kept the worst of the bugs away from his hands and face.

His boot knives made into serviceable spear tips once he broke the rubber handles off them and wrapped the tangs into hafts he'd carved with his large knife. Small vines that he pulled off trees worked for temporary lashing until he had the rabbit sinews to better secure the knife blades into his new spears. He worked on that while the meat cooked.

Rabbit was surprisingly easy to get. With his enhanced sight, hearing, and skill with throwing objects, all he had to do was make the spears and find a likely spot to sit and wait. Steve walked around a grassy area he'd found where his neighborhood was supposed to be in Brooklyn. He threw the new spears a few times to get a feel for them, but not so much that he broke the weak green vines which secured the blades in the hafts. Then, he looked for small animal paths through the grass until he found rabbit scat. The little round pellets were dark and fresh, so he backed off and sat still and patient.

This wasn't too much different from travelling across Europe with the Commandos, he told himself. He had a thatch lean-to instead of an Army issued sleeping bag and tent. The water was fresh and cleaner than any he'd tasted, even better than the fancy filtered stuff that Pepper liked. He'd eaten a lot of rabbit and knew it wouldn't meet his needs for more than a day or two, but he'd get by.

Before dark settled in, Steve gathered a dozen fist-sized stones and piled them within easy reach of the fire and his shelter. Rabbit scat wasn't the only kind of droppings he'd seen while walking around today. There was carnivore scat, too, with bones and hair in it. Some of it was large, and some of it was small, so Steve knew there was a variety of wildlife to be watchful for.

He wasn't surprised to hear movement in the small trees behind him while he ate his supper. His hearing told him it was one large animal, from the slow movement that rustled the underbrush and grasses. Whatever it was, it stopped several yards behind him and whuffed deep breaths in his direction, smelling the food.

_Has to be a bear._

Steve's inclination was to reach for his sidearm and make some noise to scare it away, but he didn't want to waste precious ammunition or act like a fool. It was only a bear. He was a city boy, but he was strong and fast, and he had some experience in rough country.

The whuffing and shuffling came closer up behind him while he ate. Steve knew he'd let himself get night blind by staring into the fire for some old fashioned mindless distraction. All he really needed in this situation was his ears, though.

He hated to set down his dinner on the ground, but it was time. He needed his hands. He listened for where the bear was, and took up four of the stones he'd piled nearby.

"You get away from my supper! Go on! Get outta here!" Steve rose quickly and yelled in his deepest, loudest voice. One after the other, he hurled the stones at the bear about half as hard as he was capable of. All four throws ended with the thump of stone hitting a thick, furry hide over a solid body of muscle.

The bear turned and ran, crashing through the vegetation and bending down saplings in its hurry to get away from the loud, painful human. Steve stood quiet and listened to determine how far it might have gone and in what direction. He didn't know if it was the yelling or the stones, but at least part of his show of bravado had worked to make it leave.

As the fire died down, Steve lay on the ground under his shelter and pulled his undershirt over his face so he could sleep without the mosquitoes eating him. He'd taken it off from under his uniform jacket as soon as he remembered that they used to have to improvise in France when there were mosquitoes.

The stones were nearby, and so were his .45 and his fighting knife. It was the knife Natasha had given him after she'd disapproved of what he'd been carrying for years.

Steve wasn't feeling too kindly toward God at the moment, so he prayed for his friends and the people of his time instead of for himself. He prayed that people would find the strength to pick up their lives once again and keep hoping for the future, no matter the outcome of the conflict he'd been taken from. He prayed for everyone, but especially for his closest friends, that they had made it through the day's battle.

_I'm sorry I'm not there to help you._

As he fell asleep and dozed lightly through the night, the drone of hungry mosquitoes buzzed at the shirt over his head. He kept his hands tucked under his arms. He heard a few small animals come around to sniff at where he'd cooked his supper, but they didn't linger when he lobbed pebbles at them. The bear didn't come back.

* * *

**Note: On vacation when I would see stacked stones (cairns), I would wonder why people took the time to do it. As I was imagining Steve feeling alone in the world with none of the devices of modern life, putting myself in his shoes, I wanted to do something. To make a change in the environment that exerted some kind of human ability or control, even in a small way. So, maybe stacking stones is a way of saying "I was here," or a way of easing the feeling of powerlessness. In our modern lives, we are assured that the things we rely on for comfort will be there when we need them. We don't slow down to notice that everything we depend on has come from thousands of years of human development and control of our environment. It would be daunting to start from scratch, maybe even for a super-soldier.**


	3. Chapter 3

By the time his watch said 0400, he couldn't force himself back to sleep. The mosquitoes had gone off somewhere else, and a light breeze shushed through the grasses and shrubbery. Steve rolled up and onto his feet from his bed of dry grass. He stretched mightily until his back popped in two places, and walked several paces away to take care of his morning business.

He wished for his toothbrush. He wished for a hot shower and some deodorant and his razor. While he stood there wishing for things he wasn't going to get, he also wanted his running shoes and a lighter set of clothes. His uniform was too heavy for casual activity in hot weather. For now, he'd have to wear his gray undershirt with the uniform pants and tuck the jacket into the compartment of the glider.

Coffee. He could play around with chicory root if he found any of the plants, but unfortunately, coffee wasn't a priority. Still, as he made his way back to his makeshift bed, the clean, dark flavor of coffee would be preferable to what his mouth tasted like right now. Steve sat to take his boots and socks off for a while to make sure his feet got some air. It was still dark and his small fire had died down to just a hint of warmth if he held his hands over the ashes.

He took the time to imagine what this morning might be like at home. There would be a quick breakfast in the shared kitchen in the tower, then he would have called a briefing to determine what needed doing on the day after a major attack. Everyone would be tired, except possibly Thor. Tony managed with little sleep while he was doing lab work, but a day of hard fighting always knocked him out for several hours. Tony would be bleary, and Nat's face as she clutched her coffee would betray that one hint of humanity with her eyes a little puffy and red from exhaustion. Clint and Rhodey would be stoic and ready for whatever the day brought, and Sam would grumble about everything quietly until he'd had enough coffee and breakfast, at which point his usual sunny, easy-going demeanor would take over.

A family of raccoons waddled by his campsite, searching for the bones of last night's supper. He let them be, and crossed his arms behind his head while the early morning breeze dried his toes. A dash of bright movement in the sky drew his attention. His pulse jumped into a hopeful cadence, but it was only a shooting star, not a portal appearing to bring him home.

With his eyes drawn to the black velvet sky, he noticed some familiar constellations. Cassiopeia and Andromeda were crystalline clear overhead, and Pegasus drifted in the Southern sky. The sight gave him hope that he wasn't too far from home, because the arrangement of the stars was pretty much as he remembered them, not shifted with the distortion of millennia of stellar drift. The only reddish light twinkling in the sky was Mars. Still no aircraft, and no fast moving glimmers of satellites near the East horizon.

Steve's belly rumbled at him. While he wiggled his bare feet in soft grass, he poked around in the ashy embers of his fire and added twigs and dry grass, then small pieces of dead wood he'd found. When he had a merry little fire going, he made sure the area around it was clear of anything that could cause it to spread. Then he put on his socks and boots. He put his large utility knife on his leg harness instead of his combat knife. His offensive weapons went on his belt at the center of his back, and he took his new spears from where their sinew lashings had been drying by the fire. Today, tools would likely be more important than weapons.

His belly spoke to him again, so Steve made sure everything was secure on the glider and he took off for Long Island Sound. Buck's father had taken him along with their family to Oyster Bay sometimes in the summers, so Steve got enough altitude to recognize the place when he came to it, then he came in low to have a look around at the place. The sky was brightening before sunrise, and he could see well as he glided fifty feet above the beaches. He startled shore birds that were already busy at the same thing he wanted to do.

When he found a likely spot, Steve stripped off his boots and socks again. Next came his uniform pants and his gray undershirt. When he was down to his navy blue boxer briefs, he looked around at the desolate coastline of the little bay. There was no one. No one at all. So, he didn't need to feel cautious about anyone discovering Captain America stripped down to his skivvies. He told himself that, anyway, but he still half expected to hear the giggles and murmurs of women's voices.

He forcefully shrugged off the mental restrictions he'd been living under. Just like there were no women here to gawk at him and take pictures with their phones to post to the internet and embarrass him, there were also no street vendors or coffee shops to grab a quick breakfast from. If he was going to have breakfast, he had to get it himself.

The chilly water lapped up his ankles and calves, then his knees and thighs as he waded out into the bay. He continued out until he was waist deep. The winds were calm, so the water lapped at his skin gently, rather than spraying him with waves. Under his feet, he felt clay and sand and flat slabs of stone. As he went deeper, there was more sandy silt and less stone. The weight of his body sunk his feet into the silt and he could already feel lumps.

Steve smiled and bent to dig with his hands in the silt. His ability to hold his breath for quite a while yielded him three large clams on his first try. There were smaller ones down there, but when he felt them with his fingers, he only chose the large ones. He stood and shook the water from his hair. Each clam nearly filled the palm of his hand, and there were literally tons of them down there, all up and down the bay. Steve smiled as he threw the dug clams back onto the beach near his glider. Shore birds had grown accustomed to the presence of him and the glider, and they ran away on fast-blurred legs when the clams thudded onto the sand. Then, they ran back to investigate.

While the light in the sky grew into dawn, Steve harvested what would be his breakfast. The wind picked up as pink and gold streaked across the sky. Schools of small fish darted at the surface of the water several feet away, swirling and dashing in almost choreographed precision. As he stood to watch, the flat silvery fish leapt from the water's surface by the thousands. It was an interesting sight, and the seagulls thought so too. Out of almost nowhere, a shrieking flock of seagulls swooped around him, diving at the leaping fish, and flying away with their own breakfast.

Steve wondered why the fish would jump into the air like that and make themselves easy prey for the seagulls. The school of frantic fish darted closer to him, tapping against his legs like a thousand blown leaves in the fall. It was an interesting sensation, so he smiled and watched the wildlife cavort around him. The excited shrieks of the seagulls were loud in his ears, and their wings buffeted around him.

Then, he felt a large, scaly body thump and scrape against his knee. A strong, flat tail slapped at him and pushed off.

"Hey!" Steve yelled in surprise, and he stumbled back several steps. His heel came down on something sharp, and he yelled again. The sting of saltwater in an open wound made him hiss, and he waded quickly up onto the beach. The seagulls and the feeding predator fish continued to harass the silvery minnows without him.

"Now I know why they were jumping out of the water," he grumbled to himself.

There were twenty-three fat clams lying on the beach, and he stepped carefully up to sit on the edge of the glider deck. He could feel hot blood dripping from his left heel. When he picked his foot up onto his other knee to get a look at the injury, he wasn't worried. The cut was a few inches long, but it wasn't very deep. It would be healed in a few hours. Saltwater and open air would be best for it, and he didn't want to get his footwear bloody.

He took a moment to enjoy the beautiful morning all around him. If he narrowed his imagination and pretended it was only a lazy day off at the beach, he could appreciate his surroundings. When he turned his head to look back to shore, he could barely see over the marsh grass to the tree line in the distance. Where the marina should be, there were no white mast poles of sailboats. Just water, then trees.

Steve sighed and got to his feet. He made a careful nest of his dry clothing on the glider deck and set his clams in it. If he kept his weight off of his heel, it was fine. Already the bleeding had stopped. In a fight, he could easily ignore such an injury. It didn't slow him down now, either, but with nothing but a calm day to distract him, his heel throbbed a little.

The bright golden sun of a summer morning glittered across the water, and glinted at the water drops on his skin. Steve looked down at the oddity of being shirtless and outdoors in the sunshine. Sand stuck to his feet and his shorts clung to him. He rubbed a hand at his bristly jaw and laughed.

This was how he stood in his bathroom in the mornings, right before he shaved, minus the sand. There was no towel to dry off with, but splashing in the bay was going to have to serve for a bath. He didn't want to get his clothes any wetter, so he took the glider back to his campsite in would-be Brooklyn wearing nothing but his shorts. He needed to dry off, after all.

On his way back, his sharp eyes noticed the gray smudges of smoke plumes against the sky. He knew the look of a cook fire. His mood lightened. There were several cook fires in from the shore to the North of him. That meant a settlement of people.

Steve thought about what that meant as he pushed his clams down into the embers of his campfire. People had been in North America for about ten thousand years. With the stars he'd seen this morning before sunrise, he didn't think he was as far as ten thousand years from home in either direction. The constellations would be more different, if he was. If he was only a few thousand years in the future, he'd have seen remnants of New York City as he was scuffing through the dirt yesterday. So, he was in the past. Sometime within the last ten thousand years.

His skin and his shorts were dry from his breezy trip home. He'd hung his socks on a twig in the sun, and opened up his combat boots to the sun as much as he could. With the help of his utility knife, he popped steaming hot clams into his mouth. They were chewy and succulent, with a tang of saltwater. He'd never had better, but that could be due to his hunger. He knew he would need to find some kind of food other than protein soon, but his main objectives took priority.

With every observation he made, he was a little closer to narrowing down where he was in time. He was no physicist like Jane, and he didn't have the mystical powers of Heimdall, or the technical ability of Tony, but he had a mind full of knowledge and sharp eyes. Now that he was well fed and beginning to figure things out, he had some hope. He had faith in his team. They could accomplish almost anything when they worked together. With the help of Bruce's tracking ability for energy signatures, if they ever could come to get him, he knew the power source in his glider would lead them to him like a beacon. He didn't need the comm device in his ear, so he packed it away.

So, today, he needed to explore up the Atlantic coast, and then he needed to find a source of some kind of food other than protein. Goals were good. Steve liked goals. If he couldn't order his life by his familiar daily routine, then simple daily goals would do.

With that in mind, he set off to the stream to refill his water bottle. He made himself drink two bottles full before filling up for the third time. He wasn't that thirsty, but it would save him time from hunting for water later. He had a lot of miles to travel today.

He tossed his empty calm shells into the fire and kicked it out with his boots. He pulled his uniform fully on despite the growing warmth of the morning. He used more green vines to secure his spears to the glider so he wouldn't lose them. There was no need to stack stones at the camp. There were people nearby, and anyone with eyes would see that he'd stayed the night here.

He was going to wish for goggles, and he really needed a heavy coat, but he was going to have to tolerate the cold and the wind. He took the glider up to fifteen thousand feet altitude and pushed the small craft to near its top speed. In a matter of minutes, he knew that wasn't going to work. The temperature was freezing and his eyes were drying out.

He slowed to five hundred miles per hour and ducked down so that his face was behind the small, clear shield above the steering grips. He was hunkered down, but not as much as the taller Chitauri drones would have been. The small shield was perfectly designed to allow him to breathe, rather than the wind ripping past his nose so that all he could do was gasp. At ten thousand feet, he could see the shape of the coastline well enough to match it to the map in his head.

All along the North Atlantic coast, he saw evidence of cook fires. A few places, he saw numerous columns of smoke in an area. There were many people, but he didn't want to meet any of them yet. Not until he knew when he was. He needed an understanding of what was going on before he blundered into social or political errors, or possibly skewed the timeline of events that was supposed to lead up to the twenty-first century.

After several hours of frigid travel during which he had to lock his boots into the deck plates and hold his body rigid like a machine part, he recognized the coast of the island of Newfoundland. Steve slowed and cruised down to the northern tip of the island. He'd once watched a documentary about the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. It was so interesting that he'd then done several hours of internet searches and ended up staying awake all night reading about the advance of the Norsemen across the Atlantic.

The early morning briefing the next day had been a drag, but he'd been excited enough about the new knowledge that he'd shared it with anyone who would listen. Natasha had nearly rolled her eyes at his eagerness. Thor had simply smiled and said that, of course his people were intrepid explorers. He said it the same way that he and Clint argued about the supremacy of their favorite football teams.

The site of L'Anse aux Meadows was small, and there should be mounds if it was after the year 1000AD. Or real, live Norsemen if it was between 1000AD and 1010AD. Instead, he found no mounds, only a grassy, rocky coast.

A little distance away from where L'Anse aux Meadows should have been, there were cook fires. And there were short, dark people with wide faces and black hair. They wore hide clothing with the fur side in. Steve couldn't help but slow his glider in amazement. There were men working at the edge of the water near their canoes. Farther up the coast, there were women moving around among the round birch bark shelters. It was the children who noticed him.

Three little ones stood on the ridge between the village and the boats. He could not tell whether they were boys or girls, but it didn't matter. The glider was silent, but the kids weren't busy with tasks like their parents were.

Steve made eye contact, and the children's mouths fell open as they tracked his movement through the air, just above the water. They started pointing and yelling to the adults, presumably about the strange man moving over the water.

Steve punched the glider so fast that he nearly lost his footing. In less than a second, he was out of sight around the sheltering ridge of the land. He couldn't help but smile. Kids were the same everywhere, in any language, and in any time. When he showed up for story time at the library, modern American children did just the same thing, but for a different reason.

The implications of what he'd seen became clear to him as soon as he got over his close encounter with the local people. There were no Norsemen at L'Anse aux Meadows, yet. That meant he was sometime before the year 1000AD.

It was midday, 1148hrs by his time piece. He would have loved to take the scenic route, but Steve had goals. He set a compass heading and started off across the open water of the North Atlantic. After two more hours of cold, wind-battered travel, Steve neared the coast of Greenland. Travel across water was monotonous, and he was tired of looking at nothing but white-capped waves and the compass.

As before, map images aligned in his mind to match the coast he was seeing. He corrected course to where there should be Norsemen, if there were any yet. And boy, were there!

Steve came in low to the water as he recognized the shape of a classic Viking longboat, and another being built on shore beside it. As he slowed his speed and approached, he heard the sounds of hammers and axes being used. Some men were standing among the frame of the new ship, and a few were off to the side, shaving curls of wood off of long, curved beams. As before, it was the children who spotted him.

"Litask! Litask! Da mon! Fadir! Da mon!" the children yelled in a messy jumble of words.

The men at work turned to the children, then their heads quickly snapped around to where the children were indicating. Steve already had the glider down at the surface of the waves. He'd been plainly seen by several men and children. There was no point now in trying to hide.

"I guess it's about time to stop for lunch, anyway," Steve said.

He smiled and waved.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: The subject matter is still rated teen, but there are a few bad words in this chapter because people are upset. My gratitude to RoseJustice for suggesting this chapter. I hope this is what you were talking about.**

* * *

"Tony, come to bed! Right now!" Pepper yelled at him.

She stood in the doorway of the lab Tony shared with Bruce. There were tears dampening the corners of her eyes and the fact that she was there in her brief lacy nightgown was significant. Bruce gave her a sympathetic glance, then crossed his arms and frowned at Tony.

"Sir, I must insist that you listen to Miss Potts. If you do not rest, I will be forced to shut off power to your equipment," Jarvis agreed with Pepper.

"Tony. It's been almost forty-eight hours, and you spent the first sixteen of them in battle. Turning over all the stones one more time in here isn't likely to get Steve home any faster," Bruce said.

"But it might," Tony said.

He knew he was beat. His woman, his AI, and his lab partner were all against him. Thor had dragged Jane away to bed hours ago. He'd had far too much coffee and too little food and sleep, which wasn't all that unusual. What made it absolutely horrendous was that they'd spent a very long day fighting back the Bruneii, and then they'd spent the following night and day helping to rescue people who were held hostage or who were in dire need of medical treatment.

He'd only had three hours in his lab to begin finding out what had happened to Steve.

"Sir, I am monitoring your blood pressure and your brainwaves. I assure you that you will do more good by going to rest. I will continue attempting to find a way to bring the Captain home while you sleep," Jarvis assured him.

A sharp pain clenched in Tony's chest as he once again thought of Steve out there through one of those damn portals, who knew where, with no support and no supplies. His eyes would hardly focus and he'd spent the last half hour dictating his ideas to Jarvis and Bruce, rather than working them out himself.

"Tony. Please…" Pepper pleaded.

She knew the condition of his much-abused heart. Tony was amazing. But he was only human, despite all his creations and his intellect. Pepper feared that if he let his drive to solve all the problems keep him awake any longer, something bad would happen to him. She could see that he was exhausted and delirious. He looked almost drunk, but he'd had no alcohol.

Tony didn't verbally give in. He couldn't make himself do it. It would be too much like giving up. Instead, he used both hands to push himself to his feet. His body didn't have much of anything left. His legs held his weight, but he swayed a little. Bruce and Pepper stepped toward him to help, but he flashed them one last sharp look before he let his eyes unfocus again.

He made his way to his bedroom by feel more than by looking. Pepper followed close behind him, in case he stumbled. She helped him undress, and he was unconscious before he was lying completely down.

"Jarvis, is he going to be alright?" she asked in a whisper.

Pepper wanted to touch him to give comfort, but she didn't want to take a chance on waking him up. She went around the bed on bare feet and slid in on her side. Jarvis lowered the lights until only the dim light coming from the bathroom doorway remained.

"His heartrate is already slowing. If we are lucky enough to have him sleep for sixteen hours, and if he avoids having more than two coffees after he wakes, his heart should remain stable," Jarvis told her.

Pepper settled down in the dark, but her anxiety would not rest yet.

"It's not that I don't care about Steve. I do. We all do. It's just-" Pepper took a moment to steady her voice, "I can't lose Tony."

"I am in complete accord, Madam," Jarvis said.

* * *

"Friend Jarvis, I insist that you transfer what information you have about the portals onto paper. I am ready to leave for Asgard. I will bring your information before the best minds in my realm. We will work at the problem of finding Steven from both the mystical and the logical vectors, and get it solved all the faster," Thor said.

He paced in the common room. Sam, Natasha, and Clint tried to ignore his agitated movements, but he kept swinging his hammer in his hand as he walked. His cape had already snapped Natasha in the cheek once. She sat farther back into the couch and kept her peace about it.

"I would happily comply with your wishes, but you don't seem to understand the volume of paper which would be required for transport. If I may, the information can be transferred-"

"No. Your information storage devices are insufficient. Create the papers, and I shall bring them to the hall of scribes for translation into our system," Thor demanded.

Everyone understood by now that Thor was not trying to be rude with his strong speech. He merely was determined to make himself understood so that progress could be made toward the problem.

"The information is being transferred now. Onto _paper_ ," Jarvis said.

Thor gave a grunt of satisfaction and kept pacing.

Natasha could clearly hear the disgust in Jarvis' voice at the act of retrograding clean data onto primitive, extremely inefficient paper. Jarvis wasn't supposed to have feelings, but sometimes she would bet her three best knives that he did.

Clint was trying to sleep sitting up, though he'd only gotten out of bed a half hour ago. No one wanted anymore coffee. It seemed that hot chocolate was the beverage of choice this morning. Nat held her mug with both hands cupped around the warm ceramic.

Sam looked beyond grumpy. On an average morning, he was content to share his poor humor before coffee. Today, he hadn't said a word so far. Natasha was watching him closely for signs of imminent eruption. Sam would squint and rub at his temples, then shake his head and try to ignore Thor. Every time Thor paced back his way, Sam grew more tense.

"Look, man. I don't care _who_ you are. You're making my head hurt. Sit the fuck down," Sam finally snapped at Thor.

Thor paused in his pacing. Natasha smirked.

"I apologize. I will disturb you no longer," Thor said quietly.

He strode forward to head to the elevator.

Sam cursed some more under his breath, then he got up and went after Thor.

"I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry," Sam said to Thor's retreating back.

"You need not concern yourself. I well know that we are under severe strain and everyone handles it differently. All is forgiven," Thor told him kindly as he got into the elevator.

"I appreciate that. And thank you. For doing what you can to find Steve. We'll make sure Doctor Foster is cared for while you're gone," Sam told him.

"I can ask no more," Thor said.

The elevator doors closed and Thor went off to wherever it was that Tony and Jarvis kept the printers. Sam came back into the living room and stood rigidly where Thor had been pacing.

"Don't we still have that last motherf-" Sam began, then stopped himself.

"Why aren't you interrogating the last portal caster? The one who actually sent Steve wherever the f-" Sam bit his lip and stopped talking.

"Because we're too angry right now. You can't get information out of a dead man," Clint said.

"You don't look angry," Sam pointed out.

"Look deeper," Clint said.

Abruptly, Natasha got up from where she'd been curled around her hot chocolate. Clint raised his eyebrow slightly, but she shook her head. She, too, went to the elevator.

"There's got to be something we can do. We ate. We slept. All the bodies are out of the streets, and all the injured are getting treatment. It's time to get Steve back now," Sam said.

"Where are we gonna go, Sam? What can we do? You and me are grunts. We only do wetwork. The best minds on two worlds are working on what needs to be done. As soon as Jarvis compiles all the Bruneii speech files we have from the invasion, he can translate. Then, we can communicate. Then, we can interrogate. Until then?," Clint paused to give him a little smile, "Sit the fuck down."

Sam hung his head and shoved his hands in his pockets where he stood.

"I'm never gonna hear the end of that shit. Someday soon, I'm gonna be flying into battle and Boom! That hammer's gonna take my head off," Sam said.

"Naw, that was classic. You didn't see the look on his face. He was like "Doth thou foul my person with infamous language? Why yes, thou do. I like. Verily, I like," and then he was sad that all his pacing was giving you a headache. Ease up. Seriously, sit down before you give _me_ a headache," Clint said.

Sam let out a slow, controlled breath and he seemed to deflate as he sank back down onto the couch.

"You know, maybe I don't mean we should _interrogate_ that man in the basement. Not the kind of interrogation you and Natasha would do," Sam said after thinking for a moment.

"Steve is gone," Clint pointed out.

"Yeah… Right. Then you do you and I'll watch. Maybe if you get tired, you can teach me," Sam conceded.

Clint nodded.

* * *

Natasha made her way to the training room through the tired hush of the tower. Jarvis took note of the intense clench of her jaw, even though her body moved smoothly. He knew that Miss Romanov did not want to be disturbed with idle communication and he had nothing to say that could possibly ease the set of her jaw or the coldness in her eyes.

He re-checked the security protocols for the basement holding cell, and the design of the cell's structural integrity. Not to keep the prisoner from escaping, but to keep Miss Romanov from getting to the man.

Medical staff was keeping the prisoner deeply sedated because they had yet to learn how the portals were cast. No device had been found on the prisoner or on any of the deceased portal casters. Sir refused to believe in any sort of magic, but Jarvis was beginning to have his doubts. Either way, the prisoner would be completely defenseless if Miss Romanov managed to break through security measures.

Captain Rogers was very important to Jarvis. He quite enjoyed all of Sir's companions, but the Captain was unique. Jarvis suspected that he was far more intelligent than he allowed others to realize, and that in itself was impressive. Jarvis could beat him at chess, but a board game was too confining to be a valid example of the man's intellectual ability. The Captain was extremely adept at finding variables out of thin air which had a way of changing the outcome of orderly systems. As if that wasn't enough, Jarvis felt that Captain Rogers was in many ways, both the most resilient person he'd ever met and the most fragile. Likewise, he was thoroughly human, yet frighteningly tactical and analytical.

In short, he was a remarkable man, and unpredictable when he needed to be. Jarvis found him fascinating and would want nothing untoward to happen to him. He wanted the Captain back.

The prisoner was a critically important tool in the endeavor of getting the Captain back. Therefore, the prisoner would be protected until he was no longer useful. Since Jarvis could never be certain when a thing no longer retained usefulness, he might have to detain the prisoner for a _very_ long time. Jarvis would never want to see harm come to the man. Of course not. Harming a human was against his core protocols. But through observing Sir for many years, Jarvis knew many things and combinations of things which could be quite uncomfortable.

Yes. Quite uncomfortable. For a very long time.

* * *

Natasha beat on the most recent of Steve's heavy punching bags. She didn't need agile footwork. She didn't need to think. She needed to inflict force into matter. She needed impact, and connection. Anything to bleed off the terrible tension.

It was Steve's bag. His sweat darkened the leather. His footprints smudged the dried salt on the floor. Natasha stood in one place, sometimes hitting, sometimes kicking, but always driving forward. She tried to keep it mindless, but the thoughts kept coming back.

Where was Steve? Had he been spaced? Of all the random places a portal could open, an infinite majority of them were in the cold vacuum of space.

Cold. Steve hated the cold. Was he drifting in the void between worlds somewhere, frozen and breathless? Natasha hoped the Bruneii portal casters had a Geneva Convention of sorts and that random portals were not permitted.

If he wasn't randomly drifting in the cold, was he on a habitable world? Was he being hunted by hostiles without the aid of his shield? Was he simply somewhere desolate, vacant, and alone?

Steve was quiet. He was stoic. He observed more than he interacted.

Natasha knew that he felt deeply. He yearned for the same things all of them did. Most of the rest of them had already experienced what he was missing. Emotional intercourse. Touch. Consolation. Steve was too strong for those things. Too busy. Too conscious of his position as leader to reach out and find them. Too stubborn to accept anything less than moral perfection of himself.

Natasha was too much of a cold and broken vessel to ever be worthy of holding anything of his. But she wanted to see him find someone to hold him. She'd given up on herself long ago. If she could only see Steve happy someday, she knew she could accept the hand she'd been dealt.

Steve deserved happiness, and the Bruneii invaders were cruel. They had countless instances of video during the battle of the Bruneii seeming to relish destroying a person in front of their loved ones. The hostage takers at the end had been the worst. Fully two percent of the world's population was gone because of them. Gone in a matter of hours. It hadn't taken a war of years. It hadn't taken advanced technology, or even projectile weapons. The Bruneii were immediate and devastating.

People were still frightened because no one knew if they would be back, or when, or how to stop them from coming back.

And these were the people who had flung Steve off somewhere unknown. Kind, honest, self-sacrificing Steve.

Rage and fear and sadness rolled through Natasha and no amount of abuse of Steve's heavy punching bag was working it out of her. She hugged the bag aggressively to have something to strangle. She wanted to kill. She wanted to punish.

More than all that, she wanted Steve back safely.

Her sweat soaked into the leather of the bag and mixed with whatever was left behind of Steve. She growled through her teeth, then let go of the tension. She hadn't cried because of anything in decades, and she wouldn't now. There was a brief window of time that she could do some good by interrogating the portal caster for information. After that, she'd find another way to use her skills.

If he didn't come back soon, she was going rogue again until she had his body to bring home.


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: I've used a combination of online sources for the dialog in chapters five and six. I hope there is enough context for you to understand. If not, then I haven't done my job in being descriptive.**

* * *

Despite the gusty sea breeze, Steve could hear the Norsemen murmuring among themselves. The children had gone quiet, and with a few gruff words from a man, they were sent off to the village that Steve could see in the distance.

The land the Norsemen had found to inhabit at the edge of the ocean was rocky and mountainous, with summer grasses and little else. He could see a few trees in the distance, and sheep appeared as little white dots grazing on a far mountain meadow. The houses were low, sturdy stacked stone with grass roofs and wood beams at the doors and windows. Even now, in early summer, the higher elevations behind the village were blanketed in thick snow. If he wasn't mistaken, there was a glacier in the upper mountain valley.

Steve suppressed a shiver. His metabolism and his uniform were working hard to keep him warm enough, but only just, and that was with him standing in the sun. He needed food, and from the sturdy look of these people, they had plenty.

The men had left the ship building endeavor to come and stand at the gray stone beach and look at him. These were definitely Thor's people. Or, maybe Odin's people. Since Thor was a thousand years old, and he'd been sent a little more than thousand years back, it was probable that Thor hadn't been born yet. That idea threatened to overwhelm his mind again, so he reminded himself that whatever year he was in, today was just today and no more than that. Every day had to be gotten through in one way or another, with the same basic needs met.

And right now, he needed to go and put on a happy face for these people. He studied them again for a moment while the gentle swells of seawater pushed up at his glider and made him appear to rock on the water's surface. The ruddy, tough men regarded him with hard faces, and their wood working tools were held firmly in their hands.

Steve smiled again, and he tried a friendly wave. No response, except he heard a low murmur between a few of the men. Oh, well. There was no mistaking that these people were potentially hostile. They looked strong, healthy, and well-armed. And they far outnumbered him. He counted seventeen men on the beach, and there were likely more in the village.

It was worth a try. Steve looked around for a way to make contact with the men without having the glider immediately taken. He knew these were a travelling people, and they would be very interested in his craft. Quite a way down the beach to the West was a jagged ridge of rock which jutted out into the ocean. It had nearly sheer vertical walls, and waves crashed against it. It would do.

Steve waved to the men again in acknowledgement and guided his glider toward the rocky outcrop at a reasonable speed for a small craft. It felt like he could have gotten out and swam faster, but he had to be careful while the Norsemen were watching. They were following him along the beach, their tools still clutched purposefully in their hands.

This was one of those times that Steve was relying on his enhanced body and abilities to handle a situation. Scrappy as he'd been, the old Steve would never have moved toward an encounter with such men as these. An odd sort of melding was taking place in his mind. He wasn't going toward this as Captain America, but he would need the skill which that persona brought into play. He wasn't going into this as 'nice guy Steve', either. Nice guy Steve would get him killed and skinned and stretched out to dry, today. As strategy played in his mind, he knew he was going to have bring the best of both sides of him into play, and a little something else, too. Something he'd never before let himself do.

He used his length of rope to secure the glider to a rock. The glider usually stayed where he left it, but since he was leaving it at surf level, it wasn't impossible that the waves could nudge it out to sea if he didn't secure it. Steve switched out his utility knife for his combat knife. His .45 was still where he'd left it at the small of his back, and he tugged his uniform jacket down to cover it. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to use either weapon. His shield would be ideal for this situation, but there was no use wishing for something he didn't have.

"God, please let me get through this without killing anyone," Steve prayed.

As an afterthought, Steve took along with him one of the spears he'd made with a boot knife. He leapt and bounded up the jagged rock face with the spear in one hand, and used the fingers of his other hand to grab at crevices when he needed to. The Norsemen were on the other side of the ridge waiting for him on the beach. It wasn't his habit to make a show of himself like this, but they needed to see that they weren't dealing with a normal man.

He made it to the top of the ridge and paused. The men were visibly cautious of the fact that he was now on land and coming toward them. Hands that had been hanging down gripping ax hafts came up with bended elbows, ready to take action against his advance. Steve stood balanced atop a thin blade of stone. As the spear was seen in his hand, another grumbling of words rolled around. To show goodwill, Steve held the spear out in an open palm with only his thumb holding it in place. He then pointed to a spot a ways to the left of the men and made a clear movement of tossing the spear in that direction.

As he did so, the men tensed and spread out. He had the advantage of higher ground and everyone knew it, but they looked up at him with confused brows when the spear landed among the beach pebbles clumsily on its side. It was a bad throw, like the first throw of a child, and he'd meant it to be that way. Harmless.

They got the message. He wasn't intending to attack them. Some of the men relaxed a little, but not much. Steve bounded down the rock face and angled himself toward where they stood on the beach. Not a man among them could do what he was doing without breaking himself on the rocks, and he wanted them to see that.

He was about forty feet from them now, and they held their ground. Steve strode forward boldly and held his hand out in greeting to the fellow who was at the front of the group. The man had golden hair, like his own, and his eyes were of a similar color, too. His hair was shoulder length and it and his full beard blew in stringy profusion in the wind. He was tall enough that they saw nearly eye-to-eye.

They were nervous, all of them, but they hid it well. Everyone waited to see what the leader would do.

"Steve," he said, and put his hand forward again.

The man looked at his empty hands, and then at the knife strapped to his leg.

"Rrothgir," he said.

Instead of shaking Steve's hand, he reached out with his axe and shoved Steve in the shoulder. Steve allowed it because he understood that these were a superstitious people, and his appearance on a tiny boat would look highly suspect.

"I'm real. Not a ghost," Steve told them.

"Hafr-karl," another guy with bright red braids said.

The group chuckled, and Rrothgir shoved at Steve with his ax head again. It was more than curiosity this time. Steve had seen that look of aggressive bravado on too many men's faces to not understand it.

Steve roughly slapped aside the tool and stepped into Rrothgir's personal space.

"No," Steve told him strongly.

Rrothgir didn't need a translation for that. It was clear that Steve was refusing to be pushed around. He squared up to Steve and shoved him back.

"Hafr-karl liki til-Ugh!"

Steve punched him across the face and sent Rrothgir stumbling backwards into his men. The men laughed and shoved Rrothgir back toward Steve.

Rrothgir shook his head, worked his jaw, and threw his ax to the ground. Steve took that as a good sign. His opponent at least had honor to face him unarmed, as Steve appeared to be. Rrothgir had a knife tucked into his belt, so Steve didn't see the need to remove his.

"Vega! Vega! Vega!" the men chanted eagerly.

Rrothgir came at him with a mighty upwards jab to his gut, but Steve turned aside and planted a fist in his ribs, almost hard enough to crack bone. He followed it with a cuff to the back of Rrothgir's head that sent him stumbling past, then kicked him in the rump onto the loose pebbles. The men went quiet at how swiftly Steve had put down their leader.

Rrothgir got to his feet, though his hand slipped on his ax handle, where he'd fallen atop the tool. He ignored the ax and came at Steve. Steve used a series of blows which would leave Rrothgir sore for days, and put him on the ground again, but didn't otherwise harm him.

Rrothgir was a little slower getting up this time, but he still came around for more.

Steve stood and let Rrothgir hit him. He had a point to make.

Rrothgir was a burly man, and hardened with a life of labor and conflict. His blows should have brought Steve down and bloodied him. Steve stood firm and braced to keep his footing. He kept enough eye on Rrothgir to see that he wasn't going for his knife, but he also looked over top of Rrothgir's head at the other men.

They could see that Steve wasn't afraid, and that he wasn't making much of an effort. Rrothgir's fists pounded into the body armor plates of Steve's uniform and a few of the blows lifted Steve's feet from the ground, but he kept his balance and his calm.

When it had gone on long enough and Rrothgir was winded, Steve shoved him away and into his men again. They all looked at Steve with wide, fearful eyes.

Steve turned his back on them and walked over to get Rrothgir's ax. He strode purposefully toward the men, and Rrothgir stepped out front, ready to take whatever Steve would do. He huffed out breaths which fogged in the cool air, but he stood firm and resigned.

Steve stopped in front of him, just as he had in initially greeting them. He held out Rrothgir's ax to him, the blade facing away from the man. Rrothgir stood there, huffing and watching, suspicious.

"C'mon. Take it," Steve said, and pushed it at Rrothgir a little.

The man curled his lip up at him in disgust, then snatched the ax from his hand.

"So that's the way it's gonna be? If I don't kill you, you think I'm insulting you?" Steve asked.

Rrothgir turned around and walked away from Steve, shouldering through his men.

"No," Steve said.

He followed Rrothgir, and gave him a hard sting on the back of his head with an open hand. He needed these men to know that he wouldn't tolerate the disrespect of their backs turned to him. The necessity of the bluff made Steve feel like a rotten bully, but if he didn't do it, he'd have to be watching for a knife in his back with these people.

Rrothgir stopped and spun around.

"Hvat ykka fyst, karl?" Rrothgir asked him irritably.

"What do I want?" Steve guessed.

"Ja. Hvat?" Rrothgir nearly spat at him.

It was clear that while Rrothgir was disgusted with his refusal to finish a fair fight, the men accepted that Steve was a mortal man, not a ghost.

"I want to eat," Steve said.

"Eta?"

"Ja. Eat," Steve said.

He made scooping motions toward his mouth with his fingers, as if eating from a bowl he held in his other hand.

Rrothgir said a lot of words which Steve had no hope of understanding. They ended with a question. Steve shook his head in apology and pointed to his mouth, then his ear, then his head.

Rrothgir grunted at the frustration of their communication problem. Then he pointed at Steve.

"Stev eta," He said.

"Ja. Steve eats," Steve nodded.

Rrothgir held out one hand, and pointed to Steve's combat knife with his other.

"Gefa yir knifr," he said.

"Knifr?," Steve asked, pointing to the handle of his combat knife in its leg sheath.

"Ja, ja! _Knifr_ ," Rrothgir agreed, as if Steve were a slow-witted child.

"No. You can't have my knife. That's too much for a meal," Steve shook his head.

"Yir keipr?" another man asked, and he pointed to the other side of the stony ridge where Steve had parked the glider.

"Now you want my boat?" Steve scoffed, "that's ridiculous."

He saw the teasing gleam in the other man's eyes, so he grinned a little, too.

Bargaining was better than fighting any day. Rrothgir had known very well that a good knife was worth more than a meal, and the other man with the red hair was making light of the outrageous offer by upping it one. Steve appreciated the humor. Things were far too serious.

"Stev neinn eta," Rrothgir pronounced with a negative wave of his hand, but he didn't turn his back this time.

" _Ja_ , eta," Steve argued.

He walked over to his makeshift spear and picked it up. He held it sideways, across his body, wanting to show that he didn't intend to use it on anyone. He presented the crude spear in trade to Rrothgir.

"Small knifr," Steve offered, "but Steve eta _big_."

He made the shape of a large pile in front of him in the air, and patted his belly as if he was stuffed full. Rrothgir nodded absently at him in agreement. He was too intent on inspecting the knife blade lashed into the end of the spear to argue further.

He glanced at Steve briefly and frowned as he fingered the rudimentary sapling spear haft and the crudely wound rabbit sinews.

"I know, I know. Its crap, but it got me a rabbit. Here," Steve took the spear back and got out his combat knife. The men stared in awe at the larger, more advanced blade while Steve cut the sinews and freed the boot knife from the spear. He handed the bare knife to Rrothgir and put his combat knife away.

"Yir _knifr_!" the red haired man exclaimed. He motioned to his eyes, then to the combat knife.

"Neinn. That one is mine," Steve refused.

Rrothgir turned the boot knife over in his hand, then tested its sharpness by shaving a bare patch in the hairs of his arm. The others looked on and made sounds of approval.

"Aerit. Stev eta," Rrothgir announced.

"No. Steve eta _big."_ Steve insisted.

Again, he made the shape of a large pile in front of him, and patted his belly.

"Hmmph!" Rrothgir said skeptically.

Steve took the boot knife from his hand and walked toward the waves that rolled onto the beach.

"Eh! Neinn," Rrothgir yelled at him.

The men hurried to see what Steve was doing. Steve bent when the waves lapped up against his boot and swished the boot knife in the salty water.

"Neinn! Neinn! Ah, ovitr," the red headed man lamented and slapped his palms against his leather-clad thighs.

Steve turned to Rrothgir and held out his hand expectantly.

"Yir knifr," Steve wiggled his fingers and pointed to the knife in the man's belt. When Rrothgir instead put his hand over it protectively, Steve angled the salty wet boot knife in the sun to display its bright stainless steel finish.

"Yir knifr," Steve insisted.

Red hair nudged Rrothgir, who then reluctantly unsheathed his belt knife. He held it so that Steve could see the blade, but he kept a firm grip on it.

Steve leaned in and pointed out the rust marks and pitting on the iron knife.

"Rust. Rust. Rust. Rust," he said as he touched the corroded places. Then he pointed to the boot knife again and ran his finger through the drops of salt water on the gleaming, perfect blade.

"Neinn rust. Never rust," Steve said.

"Aeva?" Rrothgir asked in wonder.

"Never ever. Neinn aeva," Steve agreed.

He handed the boot knife to Rrothgir with the drops of salt water still beaded on the steel.

Rrothgir quickly wiped the blade dry.

"Ja. Steve eta. Eta _mikill_ ," he agreed. He copied Steve's motion of a large mound of food and nodded.

"I'm glad we understand each other," Steve said.

He held out his hand to try once more at a civil agreement.

Rrothgir put away his old knife, his new knife, and switched his ax to his other hand. A frown crimped his brow at Steve's strange gesture, but he put his hand out. Steve grasped it firmly and shook his hand.


	6. Chapter 6

Rrothgir waved over his shoulder back toward the village.

"Eta," he offered.

He'd learned his lesson about turning his back on Steve. He didn't want any more insulting smacks to the back of the head. He turned his body aside and waved for Steve to walk beside him.

Steve nodded and they got moving toward lunch.

On the way to the village, Steve tried speaking German to the Norsemen, and that worked a little better than English. The words "ja" and "neinn" were familiar enough, and they got by with some fumbling conversation.

The village was shuttered as if they were expecting attack, with every door and window shutter closed.

Rrothgir yelled something, and the people began to come out to see who the strange man was. There were some women, all rosy-cheeked from the cold wind, and the children likewise. A few old folks looked on, but they stayed in doorways, out of the wind.

It was explained to Rrothgir's wife what was needed, and she looked at the strangely dressed, and clean cheeked visitor with a disapproving eye. Steve hid his smile when she began to argue loudly with Rrothgir. The man showed the new knife to his woman, and she rolled her eyes and stomped off into the house. Steve noticed that Rrothgir's house was the largest one in the village, and that several children ran to do their mother's bidding as she yelled orders and got the hearth fire going.

Steve couldn't stop smiling, so he bit at his lips. Some things where the same anytime, anyplace. The wife was not happy that she was going to be the one doing the work to earn Rrothgir's trade. He thought for a moment, then made a decision. It wasn't fair that the woman had to do all the work. Plus, he didn't want unsavory things put into his food out of spite.

The men were trying to herd him toward the large building in the center of the village. Steve stopped walking before they got far from Rrothgir's house.

"Rrothgir. Yir wife," Steve said.

He opened his jacket and felt inside for the pocket. He pulled out the little sewing kit and showed it to Rrothgir. It contained a few small coils of colored thread and two steel sewing needles, as well as a tiny pair of folding scissors, all in a little clear plastic envelope.

"Vif?" Rrothgir asked.

"Ja. Vif," Steve said.

He held the little sewing kit for Rrothgir to see and nodded back toward the house, where yelling was still happening, and kids were running, literally, for the hills.

"Asta!" Rrothgir called to the house.

Asta came out stomping. She looked Steve up and down, then reached out and scraped the pads of her fingers down his face. It wasn't a very polite gesture, and he intuitively knew she was questioning his manhood because he didn't have a beard.

Before she could step back from the insulting gesture, Steve caught her wrist and put the sewing kit in the palm of her hand.

Asta paused in surprise at the strength of his grip, and looked at what he'd given her.

She was a very pretty woman, tall and strong. Happy surprise softened her features. She exclaimed at the clear packaging, then fingered at the shiny needles through the plastic. Her head turned to give Steve a small smile of appreciation.

"Thanks," Steve told her, and looked toward the house where she had been angrily upholding her husband's end of the deal.

Asta clutched the sewing kit in her hand and gave him a brief curtsey. Then, she hurried back to the house, once again yelling for the children, but this time happily.

The red headed man laughed and clapped him on the back, and Rrothgir chuckled too. The men talked around him as they walked to the village longhouse. They made speculative eyes at Steve, then teased Rrothgir about something.

"I don't want your wife," Steve told him.

"Hmmph," Rrothgir grunted.

Since the watchful village had seen his exchange with Asta, they all crowded around closer to Steve. Apparently, he'd won the men over with a fight, but he'd gained acceptance from everyone else with a small gift.

It was gloomy inside the longhouse until Steve's eyes adjusted. The men settled on benches around a stone fire pit in the floor. Rrothgir yelled for someone, and boys came to build up the fire for warmth. It already felt better, just to be out of the wind.

The men talked, and eyed Steve frequently. He waited for them to come to a consensus about whatever they wanted. The red headed man next to him nudged Steve until he turned to look

"Leif," he said and held out his hand.

Steve looked at the young man closely. He took the offered hand and shook it.

"Leif Ericsson?" Steve asked.

Leif nodded and asked him a question that ended with a familiar word.

"How did I know that Eric is your father? That's kind of hard to explain," Steve said.

He couldn't help but smile like an idiot again. If the guy sitting next to him really was who he thought he was, then he knew his estimate of the time period he'd landed in was pretty accurate.

"Eh! Stev," another man called.

"Yeah?" Steve asked.

What followed was a long, painful attempt at communication that he eventually understood as asking where he'd come from. He had to think before he answered, because there was more at stake here than casual conversation. He'd overheard Bruce and Tony arguing whether time travel was a good idea or not. He had to be careful.

"Ireland," Steve answered. It wasn't exactly a lie.

Nods of understanding went all around, and he was glad for that.

Next, after another five minutes of working around the language barrier, they wanted to know about his little boat.

Steve shrugged. He made a hand gesture of cruising over the water and left it at that. The men weren't satisfied with his simple answer and kept trying to get him to say more. Steve only shrugged and pretended that he didn't understand. They wanted to know how he went without a sail or oars, and they wanted to know why it was made of metal. Those things he wouldn't have answered even if he had the words, so ignorance was the best response.

An older man joined them and took his place at the head of the benches, nearest the fire. He had hair that had probably once been red, but was whitened with age.

Leif introduced Steve to his father.

Steve wondered if Agent Coulson had felt about him the same way that Steve was feeling to be in the same room with Eric the Red and his son Leif. He kept his cool demeanor. If he started acting like a fanboy over the two men, he'd undo what little respect he'd gained. So, he nodded at Eric the Red in dignified acknowledgement.

Steve felt fingers touching his back and twisted around to see a girl standing behind his shoulder fingering the material of his uniform. He'd heard her approach, but was surprised that she'd touched him.

"Hello," Steve said.

"Hallo," she replied.

The girl was in her teens, maybe fifteen, Steve judged. She had light brown hair and was rounded and plump. He smiled, then turned back to listen to the men talk.

Leif nudged him.

"Yeah?" Steve asked.

Leif tugged the girl around the bench to stand in front of them. She smiled down at her buckskin clad toes and kicked idly at Steve's combat boots.

"Thu oska Birgid?" Leif wanted to know.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand," Steve said.

Leif pushed the girl onto Steve's lap and he had no choice but to catch her before she could tumble over his knee and onto the stone floor.

"Thu oska Birgid? Thu vanta kynlif?" Leif asked.

The girl sat happily on his knee and rubbed at the rough texture of his uniform jacket where it stretched over his shoulder. Steve noted that the other men were watching. Leif smirked at the blank look on Steve's face and added an unmistakable gesture of his fist. The girl giggled.

"Neinn," Steve said firmly.

He pushed the girl to her feet, where she mock-pouted at him. Leif looked down at Steve's combat knife. The man said something about the girl again, and pointed to Steve's knife.

"Neinn. And if I took the girl, I'd give _her_ my knife, not you," Steve said with enough disapproval that Leif had to know how he felt about the idea.

Leif shrugged.

Birgid sashayed away giving Steve looks he was not at all comfortable getting from a young teenager. He could feel his frown tightening his features. Tony always taunted him when he expressed disapproval, but Tony wasn't here to yap at him. He sat up more rigidly and rested his hands on his thighs. He would have crossed his arms, but that wasn't a good position to put himself in among these men. He didn't trust them, because of the way they wanted to know so much about the glider, and because of how they kept looking at his combat knife.

Leif looked at his affronted expression and laughed, then called out for something.

A youth about the same age as Birgid came to stand before them.

"Thu oska Ferrin? Kynlif?" Leif asked again.

Steve turned an icy expression to Leif.

"Neinn. Neinn Kynlif," Steve insisted.

He didn't bother looking at the boy. It didn't matter. He was beginning to regret approaching these people for the sake of food. His opinion of Leif was falling by the minute, but Steve knew that the history books often left out some very important details.

While his stomach rumbled and he kept a peripheral awareness of the men around him, Steve forcibly adjusted his expectations of the people of this time. Life was harsh. They lived with a glacier in their backyard, for goodness sake. They were building a boat with hand tools. Rrothgir's best knife had been pitted with corrosion. He made himself acknowledge that marriages were made at a very young age during this time. Leif's offer of the two teens for sex should likely be viewed as prostitution alone, not prostitution with a side of pedophilia. It still pricked his sense of justice that the youth were being used for sex, but he didn't intend to hang around long enough to foment a social revolution.

Leif left the longhouse, and Steve didn't much care if he'd offended the man. He studied the craftsmanship of the longhouse while his ears took in the language the men spoke. He was starting to understand it better, after hearing several words repeatedly.

Someone handed him a horn of beverage, and he smelled of it before drinking. Everyone else had a horn to drink from, so Steve allowed himself to enjoy it. It tasted halfway between beer and wine.

"Mead?" he asked the man sitting next to him.

The man replied with something that sounded more like 'murder', but he nodded his head.

Asta appeared in the open doorway of the longhouse.

"Stev," she said, and waved her hand at him.

Rrothgir rose to walk with him, and they found a feast laid for Steve on the wood plank table in Asta's kitchen.

Rrothgir sprawled in a hide covered chair, and Asta helpfully pointed to a hole drilled into the tabletop. Steve nodded and set the pointy end of his mead horn into the hole.

The meal before him smelled like lamb and barley. There was boiled cabbage, which wasn't Steve's favorite, but it was fresh and steaming hot. He'd needed some vegetables, anyway. He nodded his thanks to Asta and looked at the six little faces that stared at him over the tabletop. All of Rrothgir's children had blue or green eyes, and the same white-gold hair that he and his wife had. Steve would have felt bad eating in front of them, but they were all fat cheeked and healthy looking.

Asta shooed the children out the door and shut it firmly.

"Eta," she told him.

Steve didn't need to be told twice. The food was bland, except for an odd bitter spice that was sprinkled on the lamb. He glanced at Rrothgir as he ate and each time, was troubled to see the man's eyes on his combat knife.

There was a lot of food, but not the pile Steve had bargained for. Maybe that would come later, because there was a good bed of coals in Asta's kitchen hearth and the woman was kneading bread on a slab of stone. An entire leg of lamb lay to the side of her workspace, and there was a rack of dried fish hung where the wood smoke would cure it. She met his eyes and smiled.

Rrothgir said something gruff and admonishing to his wife and Steve put his attention back down on his food. Was everything about sex for these people? His visit among them was turning him sour largely because of their preoccupation with sex and his combat knife.

Steve was nearly finished eating when the yelling started in the village lane. People went running and Asta went to see what was happening. She came back and spoke quickly to her husband. She said Leif's name and the word Steve had come to recognize as boat.

Steve got up from the table and went to the doorway to look. He had to stoop a little to get out. Men were supporting Leif under each arm and helping him make it back to the longhouse. He had the dazed look of being knocked in the head, and blood ran down the side of his face. As the group of men passed, the two helping Leif walk called something out to Steve and laughed. Leif looked at Steve dumbly and scowled.

There was no way he was sleeping in this village tonight. His lips, fingers, and toes were tingling, and Leif had just tried to steal his glider. Rrothgir couldn't seem to get his eyes off Steve's knife. He suspected that Asta was trying to poison him with the bitter herb on the lamb, and that Rrothgir had urged her to do so.

Steve concealed the way his vision wanted to dim and waver, and he forced himself to walk steady back to the table to finish his meal. His body would process the poison fairly quickly if he diluted it with enough food and drink.

"Eh," Steve got Asta's attention. He tapped his finger against his horn of mead.

The woman watched him strangely, as if she expected him to drop at any minute. Rrothgir asked her a question and she answered her husband in the affirmative.

"You'll need a little more than herbs to take me down, Ma'am. Now refill the cup like a good little assassin before I take my sewing kit back," Steve grumbled at her.

Asta refilled his beverage from a skin that hung on a peg. She watched him nervously as he finished his barley porridge. He ate the cabbage too. He made a show of scraping the 'herb' seasoning off the outside of his lamb before he finished the last of it.

Asta had the grace to blush in shame.

Rrothgir said something and left the house abruptly.

"Mikill," Steve told Asta.

He made the shape of a pile on the table in front of him with the lamb bone in his hand. She nodded. Now that she'd been caught and Rrothgir had abandoned her to face Steve's wrath, she was very willing to finish the rest of the bargain for fear of punishment.

She took out a rough woven sack and set it on the table. While Steve watched, she filled it with three loaves of dark bread, two heads of cabbage, and what Steve judged to be about three pounds of dried, smoked salmon. She reached for the leg of lamb, but Steve stopped her.

"Neinn," he said softly.

"You're not a very nice lady, but you've got kids to feed. Keep it for them," he told her.

The effects of the poison herbs were fading, so Steve stood up from the table and went around to take the sack Asta had prepared for him. She stepped away from him and kept her chin tucked down, like a dog that expected to be beaten.

Steve shouldered the sack and patted his belly. He was full and warm, and the poison hadn't harmed him. These people were treacherous, but he had what he came for.

The woman asked him something, looking on with wide, fearful eyes.

"I don't know. I'm outta here," Steve said.

He turned for the door.

"Eh," Asta called to him.

He looked back over his shoulder.

She stood proud and held out the sewing kit, offering it back to him.

He shook his head.

"Nah. You're only sorry because you got caught. You keep it and think on it when you use it," Steve said. He knew his words were wasted, but maybe she got the point. Before he left her doorway, she made a sound again.

She didn't try words this time, but she looked to him, then out toward the town, then at the knife strapped to his leg. She didn't look greedy like her husband. She looked worried.

"Don't worry about me, Ma'am. I'll handle it," he assured her.

Before Steve stepped out into the lane, he lifted his sleeve to check the time. It was well into evening, but the sun was still pretty far from setting. It hovered over the horizon, and moved more sideways than down. He had time to at least get clear of Greenland, if not all the way back to Brooklyn.

Once again, the houses were shuttered. These people knew they had done him wrong. They'd expected him to crumple under a fight when they first made contact with him. They'd tried to steal his 'boat'. Now that they'd failed at killing him the sneaky way to take his stuff, they didn't want to show their faces.

Steve was disappointed. Two of the legends of his childhood had turned out to be low-class outlaws. Well, one had for sure, and maybe Eric the Red would have too, except he was too old to get up to no good anymore. He made his way back to the coast with his sack of food.

It was highly suspect that the men were nowhere to be seen, and Steve kept his ears and eyes sharp for ambush. It came in the form of a flying ax as soon as he rounded the last grassy dune and walked out onto the pebbles. Steve dropped his sack and knocked the ax out of the air with a slap before it could hit him.

"Does Thor know that you were all a bunch of back-stabbing cowards?" Steve yelled in disgust.

Several more tools and blades flew at him, and while he was dodging and slapping, three men came at him with iron awls. He kicked the large spikes out of their hands and picked his sack up again. His attackers were mostly unarmed now, and he dared them to face him in fair combat.

He walked with purpose past where the new longboat was being built. He could hear them murmuring, readying to jump him.

When they came, it was every able-bodied man in the village, including Ferrin, the boy they'd offered him for sex. Steve insulted them by lashing out with precise, hard strikes as he walked. Blows to the temple or the knee dropped men where they stood. Leif was missing from the attack, probably because he'd already bashed his head on the rocks attempting to steal the glider.

In a distance of twenty paces, Steve had thirty men lying on the ground and groaning in pain. He walked on and ignored them. A knife was thrown and snagged in the shoulder of his uniform. It was his own boot knife, traded to Rrothgir.

"Thanks," Steve said.

He tucked the blade back into his boot and listened to Rrothgir curse at him until he was up and over the stony ridge.

Greenland left a bad taste in his mouth, literally, but he'd accomplished what he set out to do. Too bad he'd romanticized Vikings as a child. It was his own damn fault for being idealistic. They were basically pirates and marauders, and an honest man would do well to keep away from them. He was going to have a serious word with Thor if he ever saw him again.

* * *

**Note: It's all Jared Diamond's fault. I've been reading** _**Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed** _ **, in which I got a look at Easter Island, the Southwestern Anasazi, The Maya Empire, and the advance of the Norse across the Atlantic. The Norse settled Iceland in about the year 860, then Greenland in the year 981, and then on to Baffin Island in 986, and finally began a settlement on Newfoundland Island around 1000AD. (Yes, that's a full 492 years before Christopher Columbus) They weren't particularly pleasant to the Native Inuit they found there, and then the Native Inuit weren't very pleasant to them in return. Due to sheer numbers, the Inuit gave them the oust, and Newfoundland was abandoned by the Norse after only ten years of occupation. Look up L'Anse aux Meadows if you want to know more. I used a planisphere to find out what constellations Steve would have been able to see in the night sky in mid-June over New York. There's an Old Norse dictionary by Ross G Arthur at that has come in handy, though I don't have the cool little squiggles and slopes to make the letters look right. I've used the map app on my phone in satellite setting to get an idea of the shape of land features and images of what places look like, and to calculate travel times at certain speeds of Steve's glider. I've done a lot more research and used more sources than I thought I would for a short story. I'm not the sort to clutter my brain with proper source listings, so the stuff in this note will have to do. Sorry.**

**I know this bit was a drag, but there are better times ahead for Steve in his adventures.**


	7. Chapter 7

Steve tipped hot, salty clam juice onto his barley bread and chewed vigorously.  He knew Vinnie at the food cart by the tower sold hoagies that tasted better than this, but hot clam juice and heavy bread was better than boiled dandelions and more rabbit. 

The Viking bread was tough and stale after five days, and it was starting to go moldy.  He’d intended to stretch the bread to last through several days’ worth of meals, but real bread went bad quickly.  It made him wonder what bakeries put in twenty-first century bread to keep it from getting moldy so fast. 

It had rained the night before, and his uniform was damp.  His thatch lean-to wasn’t completely waterproof, and there had been no position to lie in which avoided all the leaks.  His cook fire was steamy as well as smoky, because most everything was wet.  Steve sat on a log in his underwear.  

He’d spent a lot of time the last few days in nothing but his shorts because there was no one around, and he was starting to smell.  He’d tried washing the uniform.  It’d been almost dry before the rain came.  It would take something important for Steve to want to put the uniform back on now, because without soap and adding three days of warm wet weather, his clothes smelled of mildew and worse.

Steve felt grumpy like a wet cat.  He’d been displaced in time for a week now.  A positive attitude wasn’t usually such an effort for him to maintain, but he was struggling.  His jaw was itchy from lack of shaving.  Mosquitoes in the area were likely to be serum-enhanced for years.  And he’d give any but a few parts of his anatomy for a bar of soap, a toothbrush, and a cup of coffee.

And someone to talk to.

The clam went into his mouth after he was done with the old bread, and he tossed the shell into the fire.  It was an hour past dawn, and he was bored.  At least the sun was out this morning.  That was an improvement.

Steve snapped a stick in half to see that the wood was bright and clean, and then ripped it lengthwise with his fingers.  He pounded it between two rocks until he had some sturdy splinters.  While he picked his teeth clean of bread and clam, the sun rose high enough to start drying his underwear and his skin.  Everything around him was wet with dew and rain, but sea salt was drying on his skin.  He was getting tired of clams, but they were available and filling.  A good scrub with beach sand every morning and a rinse in seawater was keeping his smell tolerable.  Barely.

The warmth felt good on his skin.  He was getting a tan.  Since the serum, he didn’t think that would be possible, but it was slowly happening.  He checked just inside the elastic waistband of his shorts.  Yeah.  His skin was getting darker.

 The family of raccoons waddled back by the other way, opposite of where they came from before dawn.  Mama coon, and then three little scrappy kits.  The babies were getting bold.  The clam shells he hadn’t thrown into the fire were thoroughly licked clean not a foot away from his bare toes, and then the family moved on.

The breeze blew in the grasses. Leaves on the trees fluttered and made their shushing sounds.  A hint of odd noise made Steve’s attention prick up.

It was just a bit of vocalization.  Or maybe a weak tree limb groaning. 

Steve looked around his camp quickly to make sure all his modern gear was out of sight.  He’d discovered that his Chitauri glider was submersible, so he kept it wedged under a rock shelf a little ways off the nearest beach.  The only thing that looked modern in his camp was his underwear, and he wasn’t taking that off.

He kept cleaning his teeth, in case he was being watched.  If it was a voice he’d heard and his mind wasn’t playing wishful tricks on him, then he wanted the advantage of surprise.  Steve continued to listen carefully, especially when the breeze blew.

It was definitely voices.  Whispering, sneaky voices.  Whoever it was had good stealth skills, because they’d gotten within thirty yards of him and he hadn’t heard so much as a twig snap. 

His encounter with the Norsemen left him cautious.  Was everyone in this time hostile and defensive?   Was life so harsh that few people had the capacity for human kindness?  He hoped not. 

The sneaks behind him had to be Native American people.  He’d heard and read things from his youth all the way through adulthood about them.  Some tales made them out to be wild savages.  Some claimed they were gentle and wise.  The most modern things he’d read painted them as depressed drunks.  During the war, many had served their country with honor and skill.

Steve reserved judgement.  Stories of the Norse had let him down.  There was no way to know how a meeting with the locals would go until it did. 

Again, the breeze carried hushed voices to him.  It was boys.  Young boys, not yet men.  Several of them.  Steve smiled.  They were likely up to no good, sneaking around where their parents didn’t know.  He looked at the very visible plume of steamy smoke rising from his fire.  No other people lived near his camp in Brooklyn.  He’d checked. These kids had come a long way, maybe more than a day’s travel.  He admired their intrepid nature.

As Steve listened, he picked up hints of tone and cadence in their speech.  They were excited and cautious.  He suppressed a laugh.  What must he look like, a great big white skinned man lying about lazy in the sun?  Their fathers probably worked all day, or hunted, and here he was sitting bored and listless. 

The boys weren’t a threat.  They were curious kids.  Steve let them look and wonder what he was doing here and where he had come from.  His mind ambled into thoughts of what an adventure their life must be.  Decades ago, centuries in the future, a young Steve Rogers had consumed Western pulp fiction novels by the dozens in his sickbed.  Tales of the hunt, and of bravery, and struggle and victory.  A thin, sickly Irish boy had daydreamed for hours and hours what it would be like to run through the forest, or to swim like an otter in cold rivers.  Even sitting around a smoky fire would have sent young Steve into a dangerous coughing fit.

Right in this moment, Steve Rogers envied the boys.  They were free, and healthy and capable, and they had their companions and their families to go home to.  Long ago, he’d wanted so badly to _be_ them.  Now, he found that he still did.  A sense of wonder began to burn away his disappointment with his current circumstances.

Being Captain America was a rigid, mostly thankless job.  His days were filled with meetings and planning.  His evenings were often charity functions, or more meetings. Every other week or so, there was the excitement of a mission, but then it was back to office work, meaningless exercise routines, and an empty apartment. 

He had his friends.  He couldn’t pretend not to miss them.  But the boys he heard behind him were _pals_.  Like he and Bucky had been.  He could hear it in their tones.  Sure, they were sneaking.  But they were excited and teasing and laughing.  Happy and maybe a little too bold for their own good.  They didn’t know he could hear them.  If Steve was one of the Norsemen he’d met last week, the kids would be in bad trouble, and they’d likely lead disaster home to their families.

But Steve wasn’t Norse.  He was a sick kid from Brooklyn who’d read a lot of books.  He was a bored man with nothing to do and no one to talk to.  It was hard to keep the smile from his face and when he failed at that, he did his best to keep his head turned where the kids couldn’t see it.  Kids weren’t the only ones who could sneak.

After a good long while, Steve didn’t hear them anymore.  He marveled again at how silently they’d come and gone.  Without looking to where they’d been in the trees around his little clearing, Steve got up and started moving.

He drank a liter of water and hid his plastic bottle under his bedding.  Then, he strapped his large utility knife to the outside of his thigh.  He’d copied the rubber holster straps and sheath into a rabbit hide version and wrapped the knife handle in sinew.  No modern parts of it were visible, as long as he kept the blade sheathed. 

Steve tossed his boots, socks, and disgusting, damp uniform under his shelter. He made sure his cook fire was dying, and then he was ready to go.  He smiled and looked down at himself.  He was setting out on a mission, but it wasn’t like any mission he’d been on in years.  He chuckled.  He had nothing but a pair of well-worn underwear and a knife that was more of a tool than a weapon.  And lots of bare skin.

His feet were getting used to walking around barefoot.  Still, the forest floor felt rough underfoot if he stepped on anything except dirt or leaves.  Vines and brambles brushed against his skin as Steve set off after the barely discernible trail the boys had left.

He wasn’t cocky about his skills.  The kids were probably better than him at moving silently through terrain, so he stayed well back.  Steve paused frequently to listen.  Now that the kids were farther from his camp, they weren’t trying so much to be quiet.

Ahead, he could hear their footfalls as they moved fast.  They didn’t talk much, but when they did, it was with the unmistakable lilt and cadence of Native speech.  He caught sight of them twice.  There were five of them.  They wore typical loin skins held in place with a leather belt at the hips.  He saw a few stone knives, a necklace of beads, and they each had a simple spear.  They weren’t dressed much differently than he was, except that their hair was longer, and they had a little more gear.

Steve kept fighting a smile off of his face.  His heart was pumping more from some strange sense of excitement than from exertion.  He felt like he was living one of his old daydreams.  Like he’d stepped into a storybook.  The stuffy, responsible part of his mind reminded him to be sensible and cautious.  A larger part of his head was eager to rush ahead and meet these people.  To meet their mothers and fathers and elders and sit with them at their fires. 

He had to be careful.  This wasn’t all adventure.  There were certain rules he’d already made for himself while he’d had days to think about possible contact with the locals.  He couldn’t give them any modern tech.  Not so much as a section of rope or a knife.  He couldn’t tell them anything about the future.  It was better if they never knew he was from the future.  He couldn’t influence anyone’s decisions.  And he could neither fight to defend nor help to save anyone who was dying.  All he could do was interact as any average person might.

An average person would be curious, Steve reasoned.  An average person would be tired of moldy bread and of having no one to talk to.  One of the things he could do was to learn from these people.  He could observe.   If they would let him, he could be friendly, as long as he didn’t interfere or change anything.

While he thought of all this, the boys came to an abrupt stop, and Steve barely noticed in time to stay hidden.  He ducked behind the trunk of a broad oak and listened.

“Wun sanne te we?” one of the boys asked in a whisper.

Steve held his breath and stayed absolutely still.  It seemed that the boys were doing the same.  He waited for long minutes, straining his hearing to pick up on anything at all.  A footfall, a breath, a beating heart.  There was nothing.  It was eerie.  He knew they were there.  They were the quietest people he’d listened for, other than Natasha. 

After a while, he thought he heard feet moving away.  Then, he was sure of it.  He heard their voices again, distant and retreating.  Steve’s mind shifted from adventure to tactics.  He found that it was a hard transition to make without slipping into a predatory mindset.  He wasn’t hunting, he reminded himself.  He wasn’t out to subdue or destroy.  He had to use the skillset, but keep a light heart.

For their sakes, he kept his mind open and optimistic.  Non-lethal.  For his sake, he reminded himself that they had spears and they weren’t stupid.   They had likely hunted these woods since they were old enough to toddle behind their fathers.  Their parents trusted them to be wise enough to be out on their own.  Steve didn’t think his pride could take the hit if he allowed himself to be skewered by a bunch of kids.

So, he let them get farther ahead.  That little pause had caused him to take everything more seriously.  He was being as quiet and careful as he could, but he’d still done something to alert them.  Probably, he wasn’t moving as he should.  In combat, he bulled through things and stealth wasn’t required except at the beginning of a mission.  Steve let the kids get far enough ahead that he didn’t catch glimpses of them anymore, and he didn’t hear their voices or their running feet.

He saw that part of how they moved was to avoid disturbing the vegetation.  It was hard to track them, except for the depressions their feet made. He knew that if they weren’t in a hurry, there wouldn’t even be that to follow.  He paused to look back at his own trail.  He grimaced.  Here and there, he could see trampled grass and bent twigs.  And he’d thought he was doing well.  If the kids came back this way…

There was no help for it now.  Steve continued on, and his sharp eyes picked a trail for him to follow.  It was slower going, and he was watchful for ambush.  At one point, he thought maybe he was about to blunder into them and their spears would be at his throat, but it never happened.

Steve wanted to imagine the city around him, especially when he saw a boulder or rock outcrop he thought looked familiar.  One hump of stone that he leapt over stopped him.   He took a few steps back.  His bare feet scuffed leaves away from the surface of the stone.  There.  And there.  He was standing on a jut of rock that he’d climbed as a kid.  This exact spot would someday be in the schoolyard of a convent.  In his memory, this stone was sunbaked and warm, even on most winter days, if it was sunny out.  He’d never been allowed atop it where he stood now, until he’d met Buck.  The other kids had kept Steve from climbing up.  But, they couldn’t keep Buck off it, and then he was with Buck, so…

Steve knelt down and traced his fingers over the vaguely familiar cracks in the stone.  He’d thought it was old and weathered when he was a kid.  It looked just the same now.  He’d imagined it as the elbow of the Earth, shoving up out of the soil.  On the proud day when he’d first climbed up, he’d stood exactly here.  And Buck had been there.  He’d climbed up. On hands and knees, huffing.  A few seconds ago, Steve had leapt over the whole of it, his foot hardly brushing by for balance.  He looked around.  This rock wouldn’t see the sun for centuries.  A thick stand of evergreens blocked the light, and leaves covered most of its surface.  Soil mounded up around its sides.

Time.  If there was a sense that could feel time, then Steve was feeling it.  Forward, backwards, and forward again.  He could almost see the trees growing in rapid, shivering succession, burning, falling, growing again, washed over by a flood, choked by vines, cleared away by fire yet again, tall, taller, taller still, then Gone.   Humans.  Mud.  Crops.  Wagons.  Streets, buildings rising, timber at first, then fire again, then brick buildings in their place.  Carriages and gaslights, then more buildings, the grass and trees gone, crowded out.  Noisy, smoky cars, throngs of people, running, yelling, holding umbrellas, wind-swirled coats, glass, steel, buses.

Steve choked a desperate breath.  With a heave, he threw himself clear from the rock outcrop and landed away, on his side, gasping.  Thorny vines snagged his skin and a tangle of fallen branches flopped against him.

“What the hell?” he wondered weakly between breaths. 

His gaze shifted around, looking for any threat or sign that things weren’t right.  Trees. Leaves.  The rock.  The sun hadn’t shifted in the sky from what he last remembered, but he felt like he’d been holding his breath for a long time. Steve stayed still as he calmed.  At this point, if the native boys came back and poked him with their spears, he’d be grateful.  Steve felt disoriented and hazy until he had enough oxygen in his blood again.

He should investigate what had just happened.  He should look around for anything out of the ordinary, but he didn’t want to.  It hadn’t been a daydream.  It had started out that way, but then it sucked him in.  That feeling of time.  Infinity and insignificance of self.  Once it had him, he was powerless to stop it.  Just like losing Buck.  And putting the plane into the ice.  And waking up with everyone he knew dead.  Then slipping through a portal.   Helpless.

Steve hated time.  It was too fluid.  It didn’t creep along in one direction like he expected it to.  He got to his feet and brushed himself off.  His leg was bruised where he’d thrown himself on top of his knife, but that was nothing.   Stubborn and maybe foolish, Steve strode over to the rock again.  He stepped up onto it and stood there with his arms crossed.  He felt nothing.  Just like as a kid, when he’d stood here with Bucky and felt nothing except pride and sunshine.

That endless, bottomless feeling eased back around the edges of his mind, and Steve snapped his head aside in a rough shake.  No.  He wasn’t going to allow it any further.  He owned this place.  This moment.  Right here.  Right now. 

He stood there long enough to challenge the feeling to come back. To test his resistance to it.  It was there, slinking like a monster in the dark, prodding at his awareness.  It wanted him.  He knew the sour-sharp tang of fear in the back of his throat.  The only thing holding back the awful slide of time was his will.  If he wasn’t strong enough…

Steve got down off the rock.  His sense of adventure in following the boys was severely dampened.  He took three steps, then bent over and threw up his bread and clams.  Inside him, fear and stubbornness struggled.  Anger rose to top them both.  He wiped his mouth and looked ahead for the trail he was following.

* * *

 

“What do you see, Heimdall?  Can you find him?” Thor asked.

He’d taken a metal cart heavily laden with Jarvis’ papers through the bifrost.  The scribes were absorbing the information.  There was nothing more he could do until they’d had opportunity to understand it and translate it into something that seemed familiar to them.

“Time,” Heimdall’s voice resonated, the single word seeming stretched and slowed beyond normal speech.

“There may not _be_ time.  It is possible that Steven is adrift in the emptiness between Yggdrasil’s branches.  For years, his body withstood the cold and the lack of life’s breath, but the dark emptiness is different.  His tissues could be pulled apart until even his robust constitution cannot retain life.  We must know where he is, Heimdall.”

“Tiiime,” the large man repeated.

Thor clenched his fist.  He pushed aside his urgency and frustration.  There was something, here.  Something Heimdall wasn’t saying.  The trance-like stillness his friend took on when seeing through creation was rarely this deep, as to render him senseless and repetitive.

“Time,” Thor said.

As he watched, Heimdall withdrew himself from the far sight.

“Please, friend.  Speak to me of what you saw,” Thor said.

“Time is.  And he was adrift, then washed up on a near shore, not far from home,” Heimdall said.

“Not far from home, you say?” Thor perked up hopefully.

“Not far at all.  Indeed, within walking distance,” Heimdall smiled.

“Then why has he not returned to us?  Is he injured, or perhaps knocked insensate?” Thor frowned in confusion. 

What Heimdall was saying was highly unlikely.  The entire city had been carefully combed for the injured and for the bodies of the dead.  If their Captain was so near, he surely would have been found.  Thor looked to Heimdall with a crimped brow.

“Time, my prince.  Did I not tell you?” Heimdall said.

“For the sake of small green fruits, I am not Loki.  I do not delight in riddles.  Speak plainly,” Thor demanded.

“As you wish.  The Captain has fallen through the fabric of time and onto a different fold of it.  To ease your concerns, and so that you may ease the anxiety of your Midgardian companions, you may tell them when next you see them that Steven is safe and well.  But, beyond our reach,” Heimdall lifted a hand out toward the infinity of space from where they stood on the bifrost bridge.

“Time, not place,” Thor said.

“Precisely,” Heimdall agreed.

“Time and space are linked, are they not?” Thor asked.

“Hmmm.  You have learned much from your lady.  More than you were ever interested in learning from me as a child, though I did attempt to teach you.  Yes, they are linked.”

“Perhaps if you had been more female and a good deal prettier, I would have been as eager to learn,” Thor said.

His relief at hearing that Steven was in no immediate danger left him light hearted enough to jest for the first time in days.  His friends would be very happy to hear what he now knew.  He felt an urgency to tell them, but it was best to stay and work on the further problem of how to get Steven returned to them.

“If you can make a path through space, and space time is linked, then can you not also reach through time to retrieve him?” Thor wondered.

Heimdall shook his head.

“It is not so simple.  Reaching across Yggdrasil is like reaching across a room to grasp an item.  It is a reach farther than my natural arms can span, but with the help of the bifrost, it can be done.  Time is the fabric upon which space rests.  What you ask is more akin to reaching across the room to drag the floor closer, without moving my position in the room.  It would cause wrinkles.  Possibly tears.  It is not to be done,” Heimdall told him.

“Have you never tried?” Thor asked.

Heimdall smiled faintly.

“As a boy does things in the dark that he wishes others not to know, I have played at it.  To no avail.  It is a dangerous beast with which to wrestle, to speak mildly.”

“Can you not try?  If your youthful fumblings in the dark did no harm, then what more would come of attempting to move one man who doesn’t belong on the other side of the room to begin with?  Is it so harmful to attempt to return him to his rightful place?  Might there not be greater harm still in leaving him displaced in the fabric?” Thor reasoned.

“Hah.  You speak of ‘rightful place.’  Even a prince of Asgard cannot know a person’s rightful place in the warp and weft of time.  Souls have shifted about before, and they will again.”

“Heimdall.  This is Steven we speak of.  You must try, at least until you feel some sense of harm impending upon the effort,” Thor said.

“As you are my prince and you wish it, I suppose I am not fumbling in the dark.  I will try.  You must comprehend that this could harm him.  Strong as he is, souls are not meant to be pulled about across time.  Most of the few who attempt it perish in the effort,” Heimdall warned.

“He _is_ strong.  Not only of body, but also of spirit.  He would want us to try.”

“Very well,” Heimdall said.

He turned and strode into the arrow of the bifrost.  Thor stood and waited as Heimdall thrust in his sword and the energies of Yggdrasil surged around them.  When the path was open, Heimdall closed his eyes.

Thor watched anxiously, switching his attention from the strained furrow on Heimdall’s brow to the glowing rainbow path which might bring Steven to them.  He waited.  And waited.  It took longer than the travelling, and sweat began to bead upon Heimdall’s face.  His mouth parted over clenched teeth, and then Thor could see Heimdall let go of the effort.   The arrow began to wind down in its spin, and the rainbow path dissipated.

Disappointment slumped Thor’s shoulders.  Heimdall looked tired as he withdrew his sword and stepped down from his dais.

“It is as I said.  Steven is beyond my reach.  His mind is surprisingly aware of his relativity, but he is afraid, and with good reason.  Time has not been kind to him.  He is far enough displaced that the journey would likely be too much, even for one such as him.  Merely the attempt has sickened him and upset his constitution.  He will recover, but I strongly advise against further attempts to retrieve him in this way.  You must find another path,” Heimdall said.

Thor blew out a frustrated breath.  He braced his hand at Heimdall’s shoulder and gave him a squeeze.

“My deepest thanks to you for trying.  We would not have known without at least the effort.  Steven will be well, you say?” Thor asked.

“I do not know that he will be well.  I am assuming so because he is sturdy and resilient.  Whatever unease we have caused him will likely pass with a night’s sleep.  Go and be at peace with the knowledge that his circumstance is not as dire as you had feared,” Heimdall assured him.

“I will.  One favor further, friend?” Thor asked hesitantly.

“Always one further.  How may I help?”  Heimdall asked with a patient smile.

“Is it possible for you to communicate with Jarvis so that the others can know Steven is well and cease their worry?”

“No.  The entity you refer to as Jarvis does not exist, except as energy within Midgardian devices.  There is nothing to communicate with.  I would as soon be able to engage in conversation with a moonbeam,” Heimdall told him.

Thor frowned again.  In light of what Heimdall had just said, Jarvis’ existence was a matter beyond his understanding.   For now, that was a mystery he could accept.  It was more than enough to learn that Steven was safe and well.  Anthony would be pleased when he had the opportunity to tell him.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: I'm trying to put in a chapter on each of my neglected stories before I get back to Scruffy Girl. This one took longer than I thought, and I had to keep taking internet meanders to learn stuff. I know there's no way I can possibly get all of the details correct, so please have mercy on me if I get something wrong.**

* * *

As Steve watched from a distance, the boys reached the riverbank and pushed off in canoes. They were still talking excitedly, likely about him. With hard pulls on their carved wooden paddles, they made their way across East River and to what would be Two Bridges. It took them a while, and they were paddling hard.

With his keen sight, Steve could see that they started racing about halfway across. The river was running strong, and it was likely hard going. As he watched, the two canoes drifted downstream. He judged speed and trajectory, and sure enough, where Steve thought they'd hit the riverbank, there was smoke rising from a fire.

Steve looked at the angle of the sun. It was approaching mid-morning. He wanted to observe the boys for a while before he made contact with them. To do a good job of that, he'd have to get closer. He could see a spot on the other side of the river that would provide some cover for observation of their camp.

It was a half hour walk to get to a point far enough north of the boys' camp that he'd come out on the other side of the river undetected. Steve checked again that his knife was secure in its sheath, and that the sheath was secure to his leg. The river water was cool, but not shockingly cold when he waded in. He noted that it was more of a clear brown color than the murky brownish-green it was in the twenty-first century. The water tasted good and fresh, so he drank his fill while he was still in the shallows.

Steve was dense with muscle and bone, so he tended to sink. Swimming was never his specialty. Rather than windmill his arms over top of the water, he lay on his back and powered himself across with a minimum of splashing. He'd slightly misjudged his exit point and touched bottom on the visible side of the cover he wanted to hide behind. Still in the water with only the top of his head sticking out, Steve walked the river bottom against the current so that he'd come out behind cover.

He was glad for a warm day to drip dry in the sun. His knife was still safely in place, but he had to tug his underwear back up from where the river current had dragged it down below his hips. Steve grimaced at the feel of wet cotton plastered to him and moved behind his cover with not much time to spare.

Six boys came up the riverbank toward his position, five of them talking animatedly to the one Steve hadn't seen yet. They had a bundle of net and some sturdy sticks. While he still had time, Steve lay down on his belly in the loose leaves and vines he was hiding behind. He became concerned, because if the boys came any further upstream, they'd see his footprints in the sand leading right to where he was.

Everyone stopped and dropped the woven net on the sand. Two of the boys began unwinding the length of net while the other four set out into the river to hammer sticks into place with rocks. They carried on loudly, calling out what sounded like taunts and challenges to each other while they worked. They obviously didn't have a care in the world beyond the task at hand. Steve set his fists on top of each other as a prop for his chin and watched and listened to them.

Now that he could see all of them clearly, it was apparent that they were strong and healthy. Two of the boys had large scars on their bodies that Steve could see from where he was. One had been slashed along the outside of his lower leg, and the other had what appeared to be a gunshot wound that entered his side above his hip, with a matching mark at his back. It couldn't be a gunshot, so Steve deduced it had to be a through-puncture from something else. Maybe he'd fallen out of a tree and been impaled on the way down. It was a wonder he'd survived it.

They set up their net on the sticks so that the flow of the river would bring to them whatever fish came along to get tangled. After the net was set, they retreated across the sand back toward their camp. When he judged the boys were far enough away to not hear his movement, Steve shifted to his left so he'd get a better angle on what their camp looked like.

He was surprised to see three thatch lean-tos much like the one he'd built. There was a stone fire ring, and several racks of fish drying near the smoke of the fire. The fish drying racks were made of sapling poles lashed together. The boys were on an extended fishing trip. When they had as much as they could carry, they'd likely make the trek inland back to their home village. From the looks of it, the fish drying racks were almost full.

The boys sat in the sand around the fire and chewed on dried fish while they talked and worked on something with their hands. After a while of observation, Steve determined that they were twisting and making rope from some sort of natural fibers.

He was close enough to hear the words they were using. One of the larger, older boys, the one with the puncture scars on his side, seemed to be the story teller. A smaller boy with a broad face and short hair was singing something quietly. The boy with the scar on his leg tugged on the length of rope he was making, testing it against the pull of the boy who sat across from him.

After listening for a while, Steve thought he had worked out the words for fish, canoe, fire, and either water or river. Their language was complicated, with long words and some tricky vocal sounds. Given this much time listening, Steve would have normally learned more of their words. He silently moved his mouth to practice the words he thought he knew. One of them, the one for water or river, required a particular click made at the back of the mouth.

Around lunch time, the boys added sticks to their fire and placed a flat, thin stone like a griddle across the coals. One boy fetched a gourd full of river water, while another brought down a sack that was hanging high in a tree. Steve nodded in understanding. They had to keep their food up high and out of reach of bears and raccoons, or they would lose their food.

There was some mixing in the gourd of what appeared to be flour, and then the boys poured batter onto the griddle stone. Steve's belly grumbled loudly at the smell of cooking corn cakes.

He winced at the sound. The boys stopped talking and turned to look in his direction. Just as they did, his traitorous belly rumbled again. Steve laughed softly and got up from his hiding spot. He could lie still and be quiet for a long time, but even Natasha had been unable to teach him how to silence his stomach when he was hungry.

The boys got up with a rush of words and grabbing of spears. They had thought that they'd been sly enough to observe him this morning unnoticed. They likely never imagined that he would follow them to their camp. As Steve advanced slowly across the sand toward the boys, he could see that they were scared. There were six of them and only one of him, but he was a very strange person to them.

Steve turned his empty hands out at his sides and kept a friendly smile on his face. The closer he walked to the boys and their fire, the bigger their eyes got. Scaring them half to death wasn't how he wanted to begin his relationship with these people.

Steve stopped walking, crossed his feet in the sand, and sank down to sit just as he did when he read books to the kids at the library. He rested his arms on his knees and let his hands hang loose and plainly visible. Lest they think he was an idiot, Steve let his smile fade to a mere pleasantly curious expression.

They stood silent and stared at him, undecided what to do about him. With all the staring, Steve didn't want to seem to challenge them. Instead of staring back, he spent a moment looking around at the river and the forest beyond the sand of the beach. The smell of burning food reached his nose.

"Somebody should take care of that," he said.

Steve pointed toward their fire and the corn cake that was scorching.

He was thrilled to get a chance to meet these people. He really wanted to look at them like they were studying him, but playing it cool was the best thing he could do with nervous kids. Steve put his hand out onto the rough river sand beside him and smoothed a patch of it flat. With one finger he started drawing. He put long ears on his image of a rabbit while the eldest boy sent the smallest one off to tend to the burning food. The kids inched closer to him as a group, even though they still held their spears at a useful and threatening angle.

"I've been here for a while now. Eating rabbit is getting boring. I could use somebody to talk to. Maybe I could find a way to be useful to you, and you could show me how to fish?" Steve said just to show them by the tone of his voice that he wasn't agitated about anything.

"Ke?" the oldest boy asked him.

Steve kept talking to them with a calm, easy voice. He smoothed more sand and drew pictures with his finger to illustrate some of what he said. It didn't matter if they understood. What mattered was that the smallest boy was back to making corn cakes and the tips of their spears were easing up into a more relaxed hold.

"Chitkwesi," the oldest boy said to him quickly, in between what Steve was saying.

"Yes?" Steve asked.

He was glad to be interrupted and spoken to. Two of the boys stood quite close and looked down at his drawings in the sand. Steve never got a chance to find out what the boy wanted. A great splashing commotion churned the water near the edge of the river. The sticks and net the boys had set out wobbled and bobbed down under the weight of something.

The boys yelled excitedly and dropped their spears. The corn cakes were forgotten about and everyone rushed to see what was caught in their net. Two of the boys looked worried about Steve running along with them, but the caught fish was too important to ignore.

Steve didn't know what to do, so he watched. The boys ran straight into the river. It had to be a huge fish because the sticks and the net were being ripped down by its thrashing. As the thing fought and splashed, Steve saw the distinctive skin and primitive looking scales of a sturgeon. The fish was far bigger than any of the boys. They were yelling and trying hard to get a grip on it, but it was determined to not be caught. Steve got into the water to try and even up the fight a little.

Just as he reached in among the boys to try and grab the fish, the whole mass of fish, net, and sticks jerked free and the creature started to make away with the tangled net. The boys yelled in desperation and tried to grab at the trailing end. Steve saw an opportunity and lunged into the deeper water to grab at the disappearing tail. Boys were bowled out of his way, but he got a good grip on the fish.

The problem was that the fish was a better swimmer than Steve. It didn't matter anymore that Steve was a different sort of person than the boys, or that he didn't speak their language. Every man was a fisherman in the desperation of the moment. It was like holding onto a bucking bull. Steve set his feet deep in the river clay and reached his free hand toward the biggest boy. Without hesitation, several of the boys grabbed onto him and hauled toward shore.

Steve weighed over two hundred pounds, and the fish was easily double that, plus live and thrashing. They made jerking, grunting progress toward the sand. The littlest boy came running into the water with a long handled tool, and Steve yelled caution at him because of the lively fish. The kid disregarded him and placed a well-timed whack to the fish's bony head.

After that, the dragging was easier. Steve got better footing and he shook the boys loose from his hand. They were slowing him down. They exclaimed in wonder as Steve drug the monster fish well up onto the sand and dropped it. Sticks and ripped fishing net trailed after him across the beach. He dropped the fish's tail and turned to look at their catch. Blood oozed from its pummeled head, but it was the biggest, prettiest sturgeon he'd ever seen. He was proud to have played a part in landing it.

The boys looked at Steve and the fish for a prolonged moment of wondrous disbelief. Then they began jumping and whooping. The astonished smiles on their faces accompanied joyful words that didn't need much translation. The jostling and congratulating even extended to Steve. They prodded and grabbed at his arms and shoulders and patted him as if he had actually known what he was doing. Their words were too fast and excited for him to have any chance of picking a meaning out, but their tone was clear. He'd done something right.

"I don't know about all that, fellas. I just didn't want it to make off with your net," Steve said, and waved off their praise modestly.

The boys got over their celebration pretty quick and moved on to processing the catch. Steve had ample opportunity to study the kids while they were distracted with their work. Many brown, capable hands moved over the fish to untangle it from the netting. Steve helped them roll the heavy fish to get the net completely free. They were only boys, but they knew what they were doing as well as any man who had been cleaning fish for years. Their short-cut black hair was shiny and wet, and their broad faces were split with big smiles.

One of them laid two woven grass mats out on the sand, overlapped to make a clean surface to work on the fish. They formed a bucket brigade with gourd shells of river water to rinse the sand from the fish's skin and scales. Once the top of it was clean, they looked to Steve and chattered at him. By way of gestures, it was clear that they wanted him to use his strength to lift the fish off the beach.

"I'm only impressive as far as I'm useful, huh?" Steve said with good humor.

He bent down and did as they asked. The bony plated scales along the top of the fish dug into this skin a bit sharply while he hugged it, but he got the job done. They rinsed the huge fish clean, then gestured that Steve should lay it onto the woven mats. Steve handled the heavy load capably and then stepped out of the way.

Sharp stone knives came out, and everyone set to work. Everyone except Steve. They seemed to forget about him in their filleting and eviscerating. Steve went to the river to rinse and scrub the fish muck off of himself. Then he went to the fire. He squatted and scraped the burnt corn cake off the skillet stone. The batter bowl sat nearby, neglected.

He didn't know how to cook like they did, but he gave it his best try. The first few corn cakes were either undercooked or scorched, but then he got it right. Steve happily ate the imperfect ones, and then he started bringing finished cakes to the busy boys. Each one sat back for a moment and ate with messy hands. They said something which might have been thanks to him, and then they went back to work on the fish.

Steve cinched shut the sack of corn flour and hauled it back up into its hanging spot high out over a tree branch. He watched the kids for a while. They accepted him as no threat among them because he'd been friendly and helpful. The kids emptied out one of their dugout canoes. They rinsed it clean inside, then started piling blocky chunks of fresh fish into it. Before it got too heavy to move, they dragged it closer to the fire.

After an hour of work, only bones, skin, and unwanted scraps remained of the once large fish. A boy poured salt and something else over the fish pieces in the canoe, and others brought water from the river. Soon, the valuable meat was submerged in a boat-tub of brine water. A few boys brought the damaged net with them to the fire, and a few others started gathering the fish scraps for disposal in the river.

Steve went over and lifted out a darker colored strip of meat from among the scraps which were going to the river. A boy looked at him curiously, but didn't stop him. Steve joined them around the fire. He took up a knife which hadn't yet been cleaned and put away, and he cut his fish scrap into chunks which would fit onto the griddle stone the corn cakes had been cooked on.

"Kachi!" a boy admonished him.

Steve looked to the kid firmly, and his stomach chose that moment to grumble again.

"You don't want this stuff, anyway, so I'm gonna eat it," he insisted.

One of them worked to make a large frame for smoking the fish. Three boys worked at fixing the net. They all murmured among themselves and watched Steve with disdain. The littlest one said something adamant to him, but Steve shook his head and kept flipping his fish scraps with the wooden cooking spatula until he judged that it was done.

They all went quiet and watched him as he started to eat. Steve didn't figure that he was offending anyone by eating with his fingers. It was something else they objected to, but he was too hungry to care. As soon as he popped a chunk of hot, juicy fish into his mouth, he understood their disapproval. The reddish meat he ate tasted extremely fishy. Fish was supposed to taste fishy, but this was like taking a pure spoonful of cod oil for tonic. Steve made a stubborn face and kept chewing. He'd eaten worse. The taste was pretty extreme but the hot, fatty food made his belly happy.

One of the boys, the one with the scar on his leg, took a chunk of good fish meat out of the brine-filled canoe and handed it to Steve. He gestured to the cooking stone.

"Thanks," Steve said.

While the good cut of fish cooked, he continued to eat the strongly-flavored bits.

Time passed on to evening, and the kids seemed to accept him around their fire. Before it was completely dark, Steve chose a sapling tree near the night shelters they had made for themselves. He snapped it and bent it with his hands to begin making his own shelter, but a boy came to him and laid a hand to his wrist.

"Kachi," he insisted, and Steve recognized the word for 'don't.'

"You only just met me. I'm not gonna sleep in your shelter," Steve said.

The kid said a bunch of things to him, and waved him back to the fire. It turned out that all the shelters weren't needed at night because they stayed up in pairs to keep watch over the fish they were curing. Steve was given first watch along with two of the boys, and then he was encouraged to lie down and sleep in the empty shelter of the next two boys who were up for watch.

* * *

It took two days to brine and smoke their abundant catch of fish. In that time, the nets were mended and Steve learned a lot about his new friends and their language. By the time they broke camp on his third day with them, he understood nearly half of what they said. They laughed at him when he tried to speak back what he thought he knew. Steve laughed too, and he sometimes understood the corrections they tried to give him.

They asked him about his strange garment which was very much unlike their buckskin breechcloths. They were curious about his knife, which he kept concealed in its sheath on his leg. When he told them no and refused to speak of the knife, they let go of the issue and didn't bother him.

He got laughed at and he got funny looks sometimes for doing things differently than they did, but it was understood that Steve was different. The boys let him do things in his odd ways and corrected him when necessary if he was about to mess up something important. Whatever disrespect or teasing he got from being incompetent at some things, he earned back with his strength and his skill at throwing rocks.

Twice on his turn at the night watch, he turned away large, hungry animals in the dark. One creature sounded like a bear. The other one was eerily silent, except when struck by a rock. Then, it screamed in feline fury and slunk away. The boys seemed particularly impressed with his ability to hit unseen targets in the dark.

Steve's perpetually hungry belly became quick legend and the butt of jokes. They helped him stay fed. When Steve felt unsure of his welcome as the boys packed up to leave the fishing camp, they patted his shoulders and tugged at him.

"Are you sure your folks will want me? I'm very different," he told them with the best words he knew how to use.

"You'll be a good hunter. Come," the oldest boy said.

They used river clay to paint something on his face, and they took the time to tint their faces red with mud and powders from a pouch. A bone comb tamed the wildness that had become of their once-neat hair. The grooming and painting was of equal importance with the packing. Steve didn't have enough hair to slick down with bear grease, and they made faces at his bristly cheeks. Steve knew that his differences would keep him from passing muster in any conventional sense that their people expected.

"Don't lose your marks in the river," the boy with the scarred leg told him as they pushed off from shore.

The canoes were so heavily laden with their bounty that Steve worried the boys would take on water and sink. It was understandable that he had to make the river crossing on his own. Steve didn't try to show off, but he was almost as fast swimming on his own as the boys were with their paddles. The hardest part was keeping his painted face out of the water.

He really wished he could see what they'd put on him. Was it a joke? Some kind of juvenile mark to make him look harmless and incompetent? He quit worrying about it by the time they reached the other side of the Hudson. They'd reached what would be New Jersey and turned upriver. The boys kept the canoes close to shore to stay out of the current.

Steve walked along the riverbank, sometimes with an easy path, and sometimes he had to slog through marsh grass. A snake startled him once and he yelled out. A boy from the boats called out to ask why he yelled. Steve didn't have the word for 'snake' yet, so he told them he'd found an angry scale rope. They laughed, but he thought they understood.

Travel was hard going for all of them, and Steve admired how the kids never thought to complain. The canoe piloted by the smallest boys was falling behind as they tired. Steve waded out into knee-deep water and took up two large baskets of dried fish to make their boat lighter to paddle. They gave him a weary smile.

Steve still missed home and wanted his toothbrush and some deodorant. He knew that he was trudging the wild Jersey shoreline, and Manhattan was just across the river, with nothing but trees where skyscrapers should be. He felt guilty for what his team in his own time might be having to deal with, but he pushed the guilt away. It was useless. He had to focus on helping the boys and avoiding any more snakes.

The scent of smoke on the air told him that they were getting close to wherever they were going. It was early afternoon when they paddled their canoes up a small tributary off the river. The kids seemed to have a burst of renewed energy when they saw beached boats up ahead in the distance. Steve well knew the feel of marching home after a long mission, and this felt just the same.

He was concerned about how the boy's community might or might not accept him, but the kids didn't seem worried. When the village huts came into view, his companions called out cheerfully.

A few dozen people came out to greet the returning young fishermen. Exclamations of praise and surprise went all around. Older men waded out to help shore the boats and unload. Women young and old greeted them and took some of the smaller baskets.

Then they noticed Steve standing among the tall reeds at the river's edge.

"Hey," he said, which he now understood to mean 'hello' in their language.

The people went quiet with uncertainty. His fishing companions didn't speak up for him. Steve kept his eyes on the older man who seemed to be in charge because the women wore skirts, but they didn't wear tops. The old men were dressed much like the boys, except with more adornment of beads and more elaborate hairstyles.

The older man walked to him and stopped to look up at Steve. He stared at him for a while, and then he asked the boys a question that Steve didn't understand. The oldest fisherman told the elder that Steve was a man. That didn't make sense to Steve, but the elder accepted the answer.

The man put a hand to Steve's shoulder in the briefest of touches. Steve set down a fish basket to return the gesture. One of the boys from the boats told him 'ku,' so he didn't touch the elder. Women came to take away the baskets Steve had been carrying. Things were too quiet and tense for Steve to let his eyes stray to bare breasts. He didn't even feel shy about standing before the people in only his overused underwear.

He expected there would be a lot of cultural adjustments if he was going to know these people, and this first meeting was only the beginning.

The older man studied his painted-on face markings some more, then he turned aside and gestured for Steve to walk with him.

"You will see the woman," he said with a sort of foreboding, as if Steve should be afraid.

"As you say," Steve replied in the way he had been taught if he meant to politely agree with someone.

He went along to the village with the rest of the people. Everyone ignored him after their first startled recognition that he was among them. It made him uneasy. What he wanted to do was take a moment to stop and look at the living history around him and to marvel at finding himself here, but situational awareness took precedent over mere curiosity. Something was going on here.

There was a large longhouse in the middle of the village with a curved roof and bark coverings. Many individual dwellings were around, but Steve was led to one specific one. When the elder pulled the elaborately beaded skin aside from the doorway, even Steve's vision had difficulty seeing into the darkness of the home.

"Go in," the elder told him.

Steve exhaled a slow, smooth breath and obeyed.


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as Steve ducked into the doorway of the home he knew he was in trouble. A deep-chested growling began and immediately grew in intensity. He barely had time to notice the smell of herbs and smoke in the dark as the doorskin fell shut behind him. Only the acuity of his hearing allowed him to meet the attack of the large animal which was very unhappy with his presence. There was no going backward away from the attack. The elder had told him to come in here, so he had to face and overcome whatever was expected of him.

A strong furry animal leapt at him and he grabbed for it. Sharp teeth tore into the arm he held up to protect his neck and face. He had no vibranium shield to deflect the attack, but he knew he would heal from the wounds. Before the creature could do any more damage, Steve grabbed the beast by the scruff of its neck and subdued it on the earthen floor. He knew it had to be a wolf from the feel if its body under his hands. It scrabbled and moved to get up like a dog would, and sturdy claws scraped at his knees. Its snarls were interrupted by the snapping of teeth, then by startled yelping when Steve applied more downward pressure on its head and neck to keep it from biting him again. He could have crushed the life from the animal, but that didn’t feel right. It was in someone’s home, so was likely a pet of some sort.

“Be careful of my dear friend,” said an old, scratchy voice.

A light sparked in the darkness, then was set to a wick. In the flame-tinted gloom, Steve saw an old woman seated among furs. She had a round, deeply wrinkled face with a strong nose and sharp black eyes. Her white hair was in two long braids that hung to somewhere down among her bedding, and her upper body was draped with bead-decorated doeskin. Her thin arms set down the oil lamp on the floor between them.

Steve stared in awe at the elder, seemingly appeared out of the dark. Because of the wolf’s snarling, he hadn’t heard her heartbeat to know that she was there. The wolf went still and quiet under his hands, as if it knew the woman would bargain mercy from the intruder. There was a bare spot in the bedding next to the woman. Steve cautiously let the wolf go and it got to its feet. It hung its head in shame and went to lie near the woman. She patted its fur and murmured some consolation to the animal that Steve couldn’t understand.

This woman seemed to be the grandmother of all grandmothers. Steve sensed nothing sinister in her smile, even though she had let her wolf attack him. She looked to the blood dripping down his arm and seemed unimpressed by it. Steve took a moment to notice the drying herbs and the little clay pots hanging from the rafters of the ceiling. He had to duck his head to avoid some of them.

“You are tall like a tree. Do you mean to bend my neck? Sit down,” she said.

Even her words sounded weathered with time.

Amazed as Steve was, he was hesitant to completely turn his attention from an attacker. He stared at the wolf which was looking at him. The creature lowered its gaze immediately and settled down to lick his blood from its lips. The woman studied his face, then looked briefly to the rest of him. Again, Steve would have felt terribly underdressed, but he wore no less than the men he had seen in the village so far.

“You are brave. Strong. Helpful. Generous. Someone has washed you too many times. Where is your color?” the woman teased him and complimented him at once.

“I get the good things from my mother. My color is not so strange among my people,” Steve replied the best he could.

He knew his language skills were in that embarrassing stage where he was probably saying things he didn’t mean. The granny-woman chuckled at him and studied his face some more.

“Your words are different from ours. Tell something to me in your home words,” she demanded.

Steve was so captivated by her speech cadence and tone of warm humor that he had to think for a moment longer than usual to understand and then to come up with something to say in English. While he thought, the blood dripping from his hand stopped flowing, and he could feel the warmth of his healing tending to the wolf bite.

“I wish somebody woulda told me about your dog, lady. It’s not very nice to throw a visitor to the wolves like that, but I guess you had your reasons,” he said with confidence that she wouldn’t understand him anyway.

“Very different words. They are flat and round, like river stones. Why do you come to us?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve told her truthfully.

He was certain of that one phrase, at least. He’d said it a lot.

“You left your furs one morning and thought to go visit the turtles?” she wondered, as if he was a foolish man.

Steve didn’t know if he understood her correctly. Maybe she actually said turtles, or maybe there was some joke in her words that he was too culturally ignorant to get. Or she’d said a word similar to turtles and he was getting it wrong.

“I didn’t travel here of my choice. I was sent here. I don’t know why. Maybe there is no reason. These things happen to me,” Steve said with a resigned expression.

There was no way he could explain all that had led him here to this moment, nor his whole life’s story, but that much was the truth. He had to be careful in telling the truth with these people. Even if they were capable of comprehending portals and time travel, it was possibly dangerous to tell them where or when he was from. His most important goal here was to not change anything in the timeline which was supposed to lead to his future.

“There is usually a reason when you are sent somewhere. You are very different, so you must be far from home. If not the why of it, can you tell me who sent you?” the old woman asked.

“There was fighting. Things were confusing, and then I was not far from here. I didn’t see who sent me,” Steve said.

“You took a walk and don’t know where you walked from? You don’t know what master told you to walk? I think it more likely that you drank fermented juice and got lost. Do not think that I am a kepchat,” she said.

He didn’t know what that last word was, but her tone told him it wasn’t anything good. His vague tale wasn’t fooling her. He had to find a way to tell more of the truth without actually telling the whole truth. Natasha frequently told him to stick to the truth anyway because he was a lousy liar. He thought for a moment, then sighed.

“I came in a little boat. There was strange weather during the fighting and I became…” he couldn’t think of the word. He’d not heard anything which would get the idea across.

Steve reached and took two stones from her fire ring. He set them together in front of him like a pair, then he moved them apart from each other.

“Separate,” she gave him the word he was looking for in her language.

“Yes. Me and my little boat were separate from my friends, and now I am lost from my people,” he explained.

“Where is your little boat, then?” she wanted to know.

“Like me, my little boat is very different. I hid it so the people would not ask questions which I could not answer,” he told her the closest thing to the truth that he could.

“How did you find the people?” she asked.

Steve smiled. This part was easy. He didn’t need to bend the truth at all.

“I made camp in this strange place I found myself in, not far from here. Many mornings I set out to find my food. I knew there were people nearby because of the smoke above the trees. I was alone, and then the boys who were fishing found me,” he explained with slow and careful words.

There was no point in telling her he had travelled and seen other peoples before he came here. That would make more questions that he didn’t know how to answer. As it was, he was struggling to understand what was asked of him. His brain ached, hurrying around among the words he’d memorized from the boys over the last few days. To understand and then to speak, he had to mix and splice parts of newly learned words with what he had learned contextually of their sentence structure and common usage, modifiers, and tenses. It was dizzying in his head, to the point where the technical understanding of what was being said partly overwhelmed his ability to catch emotional tone or underlying meanings. He was doing his best, and the woman was likely being politely indulgent of his verbal mistakes.

“The fishers caught you and brought you to us,” she said.

He was tired of muddling through, so he nodded. The twinkle in her eyes showed him that her statement was a sort of joke, but that was alright.

“Those who are lost always seek a way home. You will stay with us until you find your way?” she asked.

“I can’t find my way from here. The weather that day was very strange. My friends who understand the weather will have to come and find me. I would be glad to stay, if you will have me. The boys said I could hunt. I will work. I’ll help as I can,” he promised.

“I will know you work when I see you do so. Most men are lazy. You stink. Help me up,” she told him.

Steve stood quickly, and the wolf sat up and bristled its neck at him. The woman grumbled something at the animal and it looked forlorn again. Steve reached for her frail hands, but one of his hands was bloody.

“I tended the birth of everyone in this village. You think I am afraid of a little blood? Use both hands. Do you want to see me fall over sideways?” she fussed at him.

Steve smiled and pulled with the utmost care. She was frail and her skin felt like thin paper. Her weight was almost nothing. The wolf stood when she stood. He moved to let go of her, but she kept a grip on his right arm. As his mother had taught him, he supported her as she walked to the doorway of the home.

“Don’t waste the oil, boy. Put out the lamp,” she told him when she had a steady grip at the pole that formed the doorframe.

Steve obediently bent, lifted the little clay lamp, and blew the flame from the wick. He pushed aside the doorskin because she looked like she meant to go outside. Daylight constricted his pupils and he saw that everyone from the village waited outside. The old woman took his arm and Steve supported her out. The wolf stayed close to her other side and her hand rested on its furry shoulders. Her braids fell almost to her knees, with beads and black feathers where the ends of them were tied.

The wolf and the woman didn’t move once the doorskin fell behind them, so Steve was stuck facing almost fifty curious people. All the bare breasts were making his face heat up, but he kept his eyes averted after an instant of shock.

“This is Bear of the North. He eats with the people,” the old woman announced in a warbly voice that sounded like it didn’t get raised much.

“That’s me? Bear of the…?” Steve asked, incredulous.

The woman looked at him like he was an ignorant child, but she was a patient teacher. Her gnarled hand pointed in four directions, said a word at each one, and emphasized the last word.

“North. Bear of the… You named me Polar Bear?” he asked in English, too surprised to think in their language.

“Bear of the North,” she repeated.

Many of the other people of the village said his name and either looked at him skeptically or nodded in agreement while they assessed him. The boys from the fishing camp smiled proudly, as if he was indeed their catch brought home. Or maybe they were only happy to have brought excitement to the village in whatever form they could find.

“What should I call you?” Steve asked the woman.

He’d not wanted to use names because the boys hadn’t told him their names. He’d picked up on the hint that names weren’t alright yet, until they knew him better. Now he had a name. It made Steve smile.

“I am called Blue Smoke Woman. You still smell bad. Go that way,” she told him and she pointed the way back to the river.

“I’m sorry that I stink,” Steve mumbled.

He was mobbed on his left side by the boys he’d been at the fishing camp with. Everyone in the village stayed away from the side the wolf walked on. Most of the people went back to wherever they’d come from. To their houses or to their interrupted tasks, he supposed. Things felt at ease and settled now, so Steve allowed himself to look around.

The homes were domes of peeled bark, bent over limber wood frames. They weren’t very large, probably about twelve feet across and half as high. There were twelve single family homes, plus the large longhouse.   There were the buildings, some central cook fires, and some clay pots near the fires. Some frames held animal skins that were stretched in the sun to dry. Old men ambled back toward the door of the longhouse. Women with children at their hip or clutching their skirts lingered to stare at him. His eyes once again skittered away from breasts. Many of the ladies were pretty, young or old. In general, these were a handsome people, strong and well-formed. Young children stared at him and smiled in wonder. Young women ran into homes, in a hurry about something.

“I’m Red Bead,” the oldest boy from the fishing camp said from his left side.

“I’m glad to know your name,” Steve said.

Deer Runner. Make Peace. Howls the Wind. Sweet Nettle. One With Stones. Steve learned the names of all the boys he’d been fishing with. Blue Smoke Woman allowed the boys to pat at Steve’s wounded arm, which was sticky with drying blood, then she chased the boys away with gruff words. The wolf grumbled at the kids, and they ran off to their homes.

Blue Smoke Woman walked slowly toward the river. The village was behind them and the beached boats were ahead.   The old woman’s careful steps required him to be slow and attentive. Steve was accustomed to going places with a purposeful stride. The wolf was in no hurry. It glanced up at him, then away again.

“What is his name?” he asked.

“Wolf,” the woman said.

“Only wolf?”

“You think I should call him Bird? Or Tree?” Blue Smoke Woman teased.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

Several young women ran past them toward the river.   Steve was relieved that his view was mostly of their backs. He’d heard them coming from behind, but he’d also heard their voices and knew they were female, so he refrained from looking.

“Where are they going?” Steve asked suspiciously.

“You need a bath. You have come to us with nothing, like a baby. You don’t have proper clothing. You will learn to smell civilized if you are to live with the people,” Blue Smoke Woman told him.

Steve heard laughing and splashing in the river. Female laughter. He groaned, embarrassed already. It was clear that he needed to do as Blue Smoke Woman expected. He was grateful for her help and her acceptance, but this was going to be bad. He could tell already. Laughing girls. Half-naked laughing girls. His skin was flaming into his hardest blush already.

Blue Smoke Woman walked on with a little smile on her face. She didn’t look at him but ahead at her footing as they descended the slope down to the riverbank.

“Do I have to?” Steve asked, pleading.

“Yes,” the old woman said in her creaky voice. He could tell that she was pleased about something.

Quick as he was with strategy in tough situations, dealing with women was not included in that skill. Time and again, his wits deserted him when females were involved. The prettier the girls were, the harder and faster his mind flew right out of his head. Unless the girls were armed and on the wrong side of an active conflict, Steve didn’t know what to do with them. It had been a long day at the end of a hellishly long week. He was mentally tired. There wasn’t much fight left in him, unless an actual battle was kind enough to come along and save him.

Steve escorted Blue Smoke Woman to a smooth log that made a nice seat overlooking the riverbank. Wolf lay down not far from her feet. Steve thought for a moment, then took his knife and its primitive looking sheath off of his leg. He wrapped the straps around the sheathed knife and its handle, then offered the bundle to Blue Smoke Woman.

“This is mine. From my home. Keep it for me until later?” he asked.

She accepted the bundle and her thin hands made it look heavy. She tucked it in a pocket of her skirt and nodded. The old woman shooed Steve away, down toward the water and the waiting young women. Steve trudged off to obey.

The day was warm and the sun was bright. He paid attention to every detail on his walk to the water’s edge. Every detail except the girls who waited for him. There were maple trees, and hickory, and birch and others, all of them flying their deep green summer colors. There was Red Bead’s boat, and Deer Runner’s boat, and Sweet Nettle’s boat, which they had brined the fish in. Beyond that was trouble. He couldn’t put it off anymore.

The River water was cool on his feet then on his shins, then his knees. The girls waited for him with luffa scrubbers and smiles. They stood in waist-deep water. Steve plowed into the water with more force than grace. He went past some of the girls until he was midrib deep in the river. Then he allowed himself to turn and look at them. They smiled and returned his regard.

“Hi. She said that I’m Bear of the North,” he stammered for something to say.

He was determined to respect them as people and to not look down at their chests. The men of the village hadn’t paid any attention to the women’s chests at all. They were dressed perfectly normally for their culture, he reminded himself. He could do this.

“We were there. We heard,” said a tall girl with saucy eyes and… small, pert breasts.

Steve shook his head and gave up. May as well get it over with. The tension was intolerable.

Small breasts. Plump breasts. Pointy ones and round ones, some that spread wide, and some that set low, and some that perched high and proud. They were adorned with broad nipples and aureoles and with small, precise points, and everything in between, all in shades of lovely brown on deep golden skin. Not a hint of a tan line in sight.

“You should be called Pink Bear, I think,” one of the girls commented.

“Was he that color before?” another asked.

“Look at his hairs. Maybe he should be Golden Bear?”

“His eyes are strange. What color are they?” someone wanted to know.

The girls crept closer and Steve held his ground. There was nothing else he could do. His pride would not allow him to retreat.

“They’re closed. Bear of the North, why do you shut your eyes? Let me see,” a high, pretty female voice said.

“Yes, let us see,” another agreed.

Steve felt hands perch on his right arm, and other hands clung to his shoulder on his left side, kindly avoiding his Wolf bites. Soft female skin surrounded him, pressed against him. So soft. He could hear their heartbeats, their quick little breaths, just on the verge of giggles. He was surrounded, and the urge to free up some space around him was strong. His muscles tensed to act, but he didn’t allow himself to shove them away. He didn’t want to hurt them.

“Open your eyes,” a girl encouraged him, low and sing-song. Teasing.

He gathered his fortitude and looked with determined dignity toward the voice he’d heard last. The one right in front of him.

“They’re pale. Are you not blind? How can you see with such eyes?” one asked.

“I can’t tell the color in the shade you make. You’re so tall. Crouch down more and look up at the sky,” another said.

The girls all apparently agreed with that in their curiosity. They softly pressed down on his shoulders, more encouraging him down than trying to force him. He bent his knees to sink down some. He was surrounded by breasts. Steve strangled a groan and looked up at the sky out of self-preservation.

“His eyes are blue!”

“Like the sky?   They can’t be. It’s because he is looking at the sky. Look here, Bear of the North. I can see better than Curling Leaf,” one said.

“What’s your name?” Steve asked, to have something to say as he looked at her.

“I’m Breeze,” said the girl with large eyes and long lashes.

“Your name has one word?” Steve asked.

“My parents are mixani,” she shrugged, “His eyes _are_ blue, deeper than the sky.”

“Let me see!” a girl with beautiful round shoulders said.

She put her fingers to Steve’s face and pressed him to look at her. The handling was getting to be a bit much for him. People never touched him except in combat or training. All this softness was confusing. Smothering. He turned so she could see his eyes like she wanted, but the look on his face was stubborn.

Slowly but firmly, he broadened his stance and began pushing the girls away from him. Some were pretty, some were plain, but they were all nearly naked. Too much. They were far too much, and his body only knew one thing to do with that kind of softness.

“Breeze is right. His eyes are blue, like the sky in early evening. Why do you push us? How can we scrub your smelly hide if you push us away?” asked Curling Leaf.

“Back off. I don’t need you to get myself clean,” Steve grumbled in English.

“We’re taking too much time. Mother will need me for supper. Don’t you have the soaproot, Crashing Clouds? Who has the blades for his whiskers?”

“I didn’t bring blades. I thought we would pluck his face clean,” another girl said.

Steve shook his head and backed away from the determined, advancing girls.

“Nobody is shaving me or plucking me!” he told them.

Blue Smoke Woman said some words to the young women from up on the riverbank, but Steve was too distressed to listen and understand anymore. He waded out until he was in water deeper than the girls could stand in. His heart thumped harder with the urge to fight or flee. He knew he was being ridiculous and unreasonable. The river current was headed out to the bay on an ebb tide and his muscles fought to keep him where he wanted to be. He was glad to have something to fight against, anything other than soft female flesh.

“All of you are more blinded than Braves the Dark! Move away. You frighten him. Be gentle,” Blue Smoke Woman’s words finally reached into his mind.

Steve let out a slow, controlled breath. He made himself do it again and again until his heart slowed down. He’d shamed himself.   They were only women. People. They stood in the shallows, knee deep, looking at him with sympathy or confusion because the old woman made him sound like a coward. Steve grit his teeth. Sometimes the battle could be neither won nor retreated from. His pride had to die. Tony would hound him to no end for this, and so would Bucky, if either of them could see him now.

He swam across the current until he had firm footing on the river bottom again. His nerves had his muscles jittery, just as anxious as his mind. The water was chest deep. Waist deep. He waded up among the half-naked young women and stood in knee deep water. He let his hands fall to his sides. His body trembled, but it was too fine and fast for them to see it. Tension. Not fear.

“Bathe me, then,” he told them, his voice pitched low in defeat.

“We would have been done by now, had you not- oh!” Curling Leaf exclaimed as she looked down his body to the situation in his poor, much-abused boxer briefs.

“I know, I know. Get on with it,” Steve said.

The girls cooed and giggled, but they set to scrubbing him. Steve closed his eyes and stood there. He didn’t want to watch. Didn’t need to. They cleaned off the markings that the boys had painted on his face. Hands moved all over him, except where his underwear covered. They splashed him, they soaped him with some kind of rough herbal root, and they scrubbed at him with the luffa. So many hands on his skin. Rough scrubs, slippery soap, soft skin. Giggles. Whispers that the old woman wasn’t meant to hear. They surrounded him again and pressed around him more than they needed to. They pushed his arms up to clean underneath. Then they soaped, scoured and rubbed his chest and his belly. It was too much, too late, too far for him to care anymore.

The tension in his body, the tension in his mind, even the internal fight to make himself submit to their grooming all culminated in an inevitable, humiliating rush to release. The girls murmured encouragement to him. They softly exclaimed and giggled while he tried his best to suppress the shudders, but they knew.   Someone’s hands stripped his shorts from him, and he surrendered the ruined old things. If he hadn’t just popped a moment ago, he would have done it now as they cleaned him absolutely all over, not a crevice ignored. He didn’t think the backs of his knees and the spaces between his toes had ever been so clean.

Again, they wanted to remove the beard that had grown for two weeks on his jaw but he refused. Now that the muscle tension was gone, he pressed them away gently. He shut his eyes and stood his ground as they splashed him from all sides to get the slippery soaproot rinsed off of him. Their hands fretted at his hair and beard, but he shook his head and murmured ‘no’ again. While he was still dripping wet, Breeze and another girl rubbed under his arms with some aromatic fresh green leaves.

A serious-looking girl with a slender body slicked her hands together with fresh herbed bear grease, then rubbed it into his hair. He stammered to object when she also insisted on rubbing the ointment into the hairs below his waist.

“You don’t want insects, do you?” she questioned him.

“No. Insects would be bad,” Steve agreed briskly.

She did what she meant to do, then backed away and left him alone. The rest of the girls herded him out of the water. The girl they’d called Crashing Clouds brought him a long rectangle of buckskin, and another girl brought a supple length of hide which would serve as a belt. He raised his arms out to his sides and they dressed him in less than a minute. If they maybe groped him a bit more than was necessary to get the job done, at least they didn’t linger.

            Now that he felt calmer and could allow himself to notice more details about their bodies, he saw that some of the young women had finely braided cords around their waists. One of them wore two cords. He was sure that meant something.

            “Now you are fit to sit at someone’s supper,” Blue Smoke Woman proclaimed.

            Steve watched the old woman descend from her observation perch with Wolf at her side to steady her hand. The animal was just the correct height for her to brace against when she was unsure of her balance. Slowly, she came to the village path and Steve went to support her other arm.

            Wolf growled at him when he came close. Steve reached and took the large animal by the scruff of its neck. He gripped hard and shook the skin, but he was careful not to disturb Blue Smoke Woman’s balance. Wolf stopped his growling and turned his head to look away.

            “You heal faster than the sun flies,” the old woman said.

She looked at his bitten arm. It was now clean and dry and rubbed with healing salve.

            “I do, but that’s no reason to let him think he can bite me again,” Steve said.

            “As you say,” she agreed.

            The girls lingered near the water as Steve and the medicine woman began the walk back to the village. Steve looked to them. They stared at him, far too quiet for any group of women. He knew they had a lot to say about him as soon as his back was turned.

            “Thank you,” he told them.

            Blue Smoke Woman laughed and patted his arm as they walked.

            “None of them are yours. I have someone special for you. Someone who needs your help. Since you have proven yourself to be gentle to those who are weaker than you, even when you are upset, I think you are the one who can see her value,” she said.

            “A woman? I’m not here for a woman. My friends will come for me someday soon,” Steve insisted.

            “Yes. Until then, you will help Braves the Dark,” she said.

            “What does she need help with?” Steve asked.

            “Many things. You will see. Except for your strange colors, you look like a fine enough young man. Maybe her parents won’t complain,” Blue Smoke Woman speculated.

            “I’m not sure I like the sound of this,” Steve complained in English.

            “Stop your grumbling. You said you would work, and that you would help. Where I put you is where you are needed,” she told him.

            The village was too busy in the early evening for many people to linger and watch him and the woman and the wolf. Blue Smoke Woman led him to a particular home that was not far from hers. Beyond the homes, the forest seemed to welcome the cool gloom of evening.

            “Fallen Petals, I have a gift for your child,” his companion called at the doorway.

            A middle-aged woman came out and held open the doorskin. Her neat black hair was pulled back severely like a shining cap. Steve was not quite as startled by the sight of breasts now, so he managed to respectfully meet the woman’s eyes.

            “Why do you bring this gift to me? If we must have one, is a strange one the only one you could find for us?” she asked.

            “He will be a strong help for you and for Braves the Dark. Look how he leads me so well. You will be free to go about your work, and your daughter can teach him all that he is lacking. Let it not be said that Fallen Petals is too inhospitable to share her home with a friend in need,” said Blue Smoke Woman.

            “Let it not be said,” Fallen Petals agreed reluctantly.

            The medicine woman tottered away with the wolf to support her. Steve stood and watched until he saw that she was safely inside her home.

            “She will not fall down from here to there if she doesn’t have you. Before today, she did not need you. Tomorrow, she still will not need you,” Fallen Petals told him.

            “That is true. She said that I could be useful here. Please show me how?” Steve said.

            “You speak like a small child. You must learn before you can be of any use,” Fallen Petals said.

            “Please have mercy. I will learn,” Steve said.

            “Mother, who is there?” a voice said from within the home.

            Fallen Petals held the doorskin wide and gestured Steve inside. He ducked under the doorframe and into the cheerfully lit home. A small fire ring held a welcoming blaze, and barely a wisp of smoke exited up to the vent at the top of the dome. Steve had to keep his neck bent a little to not hit his head.

Steve looked to the left and saw a young woman, closer to his age than the ones who had bathed him. She had several cords around her waist. Again, he fought a flash of shock because she was half bare and pretty to look at. Her fingertips skimmed the interior wall of the home until her other hand came to lightly rest in the middle of his chest.

“A man, from the sound of him. Hello.   Who are you?” she looked to his face with a friendly smile, but her eyes were cloudy and gray where they should have been black.

“I am Bear of the North. I’m new to your village, and Blue Smoke Woman only named me today. Are you Braves the Dark?” he asked.

“That is me, though I don’t know how brave I am. Had you no name before today? You are far too large to have just had your naming ceremony,” she told him, and she didn’t giggle.

He was thankful for that.

“He is strange. Feel of him. His hairs are yellow, and his eyes are pale. Not like yours. I think he can see well. Can’t you?” Fallen Petals asked.

“I see very well,” Steve told the mother.

The young woman in front of him glided her hands over his chest and up his neck to his face. Her palms rubbed at his short, almost prickly beard and she laughed. His hair was explored next, and then she spent nearly a minute studying his face. Her touch was light and he didn’t mind. She wasn’t greedy and groping like the other girls. Since she was blind, this was how she learned of him, and he understood that. Oddly, Steve found it easier to look at her face rather than at her breasts because she couldn’t see him. Her face was pretty and kind, expressive despite eyes that didn’t quite look at him.

“If Bear of the North became your name today, then what was it yesterday? What name is still inside your head?” she asked him.

“Steve,” he said.

“That is a small sound for such a large person,” she said skeptically.

“My mother named me Stephen Grant Rogers,” he explained.

His given name sounded strange and plain at the end of these people’s words.

“What does it mean?” Braves the Dark asked him.

“Children, there is work to be done. Teach him to grind the corn for tomorrow while you talk,” Fallen Petals told them.

“Yes, mother,” the girl said.

She took Steve by the hand and led him over to a low stone where she had been working. Braves the Dark folded herself down onto her knees on a thick fur and felt of the half-ground flour on her grinding stone. Her face showed a long-suffering patience with the situation.

“She does know that we’re not children, yes?” Steve squatted down to whisper near her.

“Shhh. She is in denial. I should have been married years ago and she refuses to speak of it. Beware that old women don’t trap you into marriage with me. Between mother and huma, I know it is their dearest wish,” his new companion said.

“I am no good for marriage. I’m only here to visit for a little while and I told this to Blue Smoke Woman. I am lost, but my friends will find me,” Steve said.

“Are your friends as kind and as easy as you? You are not at all like other men,” Braves the Dark told him.

“My friends are kind and easy. There is no need to fear for your people,” Steve assured.

“I can help you with your words,” she told him gently after a few moments of consideration.

“Thank you,” Steve whispered, “What can I help you with?”

Braves the Dark chuckled.

“You can walk with me so that I don’t fall on my face. I can hear your voice instead of my mother’s, at least while you are with us,” she said.

“I eat a lot. I want to help with food,” Steve said.

While they spoke softly, Fallen Petals stirred the contents of a clay pot over the fire. She served stew into a carved wooden bowl and set it by the fire.

“Take your new helper and bring huma her supper. See if he can get you home safely in the dark,” the older woman said in her daughter’s direction.

Braves the Dark got up from her seat at her grinding stone and ran her fingers overhead along the beams that formed the frame of the house. She guided herself to the fire ring and bent perfectly to pick up the bowl her mother had set aside. Steve was unable to look away from her for a moment. Despite her limitation, she was happy and graceful. He could see the particular slight tilt of her head that meant she listened carefully in his direction. Then, her face turned directly to him.

“Come and start your work. Take me to huma. Blue Smoke Woman,” she said.

Steve got up and guided her as he had done for the old woman, except that Braves the Dark was quick and light on her feet. They left the house and turned right. Steve walked the clear path between the houses.

“What is the word ‘huma’?” he asked.

“It means mother of my mother, but she is my father’s mother’s mother. Very old,” Braves the Dark told him.

Steve enjoyed the cozy glow of the light from the longhouse across the way. He supposed that he would go inside it someday. For now, he kept a sharp eye on the path for anything that could trip his new friend.

Wolf started growling before they reached the door.

“He knows you are with me. Beware. He hates men. He will bite you if you come too close to huma or to me,” Braves the Dark warned.

She stepped away from Steve and reached her hand out until she touched the house and found the door.

“He already did,” Steve said.

“Uma! You let Wolf bite Steve?”

The old woman came to the door and took the steaming bowl of stew from her great-great granddaughter.

“It is not so much a matter of letting. Elder Wild Wind tossed him inside my door while I was napping. I don’t know who could have killed who, but they both behaved themselves fairly well at the end of it. He is not Steve. He is Bear of the North until his weather-finder friends come for him. If they ever do. Weather as strange as he tells the tale of is not easily found,” the old woman said in a tumbling babble of words that Steve only translated a half-minute after she’d finished speaking them.

“Not everyone should hear my tale of the strange weather,” Steve cautioned them.

Blue Smoke Woman said no more, but she watched him guide Braves the Dark back to her mother’s home. The old woman only dropped her doorskin when Steve looked back at her before going inside for the night. He could see that she was smiling. Smug.

The inside of Fallen Petal’s home was darker than the night outside. If not for his enhanced eyesight and memory, he would have tripped over things inside the unfamiliar home. He almost did stumble over Braves the Dark, but he heard her quiet respirations and heartbeat just before he did so. He squatted down beside her where she worked to put away the corn she had ground into clay jars.

She served each of them bowls of stew from the pot by the fire. They ate in the dark, and she served him a second bowl when she heard his stomach continue to complain. Steve was embarrassed and thankful. The stew was wonderful and filling, so much better than rabbit or more clams. It contained vegetables and grain, things his diet had been missing. Braves the Dark dipped water for them from a crock and they drank their fill. He watched as she rinsed their bowls clean, scoured them out with something, then rinsed them clean again.

Steve noted that Fallen Petals was already asleep on a bed of furs in the back of the small house, farthest away from the doorway. The woman looked to be deeply asleep, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

“Do people always go to bed this early?” Steve whispered.

“No. Only my mother does when father is not at home,” Braves the Dark whispered back very quietly.

He wondered if her hearing was sharper because of the loss of her sight. He’d never known if that idea was reality or a myth and it felt too soon to ask her such a thing. He followed the girl around the banked fire in the floor and to another bed not far from the door.  Once again, she touched the overhead beams to guide herself to her bedding.

“Where is your father? When will he come home?” Steve asked.

“The men are out hunting. They will return tomorrow or the day after. If the house is dark and you can’t see, you should lie down here and sleep,” Braves the Dark whispered.

“I can see in the dark well enough,” Steve said.

He didn’t like the thought of lying down to sleep next to an under-clothed girl whom he hardly knew. It would be good when the men returned from their hunt. Then he could speak to the man of the house and be more certain of his welcome here.

“I can see just as well in the dark as in daylight, but tomorrow’s work begins at sunrise. Sleep,” the young woman advised him.

He lay down. Braves the Dark gave him one of her furs so that he wouldn’t have to lie directly on the packed earth floor. It was a kindness and he thanked her for it. He tried to sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause trouble now that he had found dry shelter, good food, companionship, and the ability to get clean. He thought he smelled odd, of rich animal fat and of herbs, but it was probably better than what he had smelled like this morning. Fallen Petals smelled bitter and stale, in need of a bath. Braves the Dark smelled like a healthy young woman, and he tried to ignore that. Sleep was impossible. He’d had plenty of sleep the night before.

“Where do I go to… make water?” Steve finally whispered when he could wait no longer.

Braves the Dark gave a tired little sigh and rolled over to face him. Steve averted his eyes even though there was no one to see him if he felt like staring at her. The night wasn’t cold enough to need to cover up.

“Go outside. Around to the left of the house is a jar. Make your water in there. Tie the doorskin when you come back in. I forgot to tie it. You have broken my routine,” she told him.

Steve didn’t know what to say to that, and his back teeth were floating anyway. He hurried outside and found the large clay jar he was supposed to pee in. He made sure to tie the doorskin shut when he was inside for the night. Not that such a door or the tying of it would keep anything out except rain and lazy animals.

He lay back down on his one fur and wondered what tomorrow would bring. He was very satisfied with today. Too satisfied. He shouldn’t allow himself to get comfortable here.

“Why are you so easy to talk to? Your words are imperfect, yet I don’t choke up with you like when I try to talk to other men,” Braves the Dark whispered.

“I wish I knew that answer. I’m bad with women, but not with you. We are meant to be friends, I think?” Steve offered.

“That is what I think, but others may have different plans. Worry tomorrow. Sleep tonight,” she told him softly.  

Steve didn’t sleep for several hours, but he finally got a nap before dawn.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve groped for the source of pain at his throat. A male voice barked at him in words that made no sense. His dream of sitting in an Avengers planning meeting fled as he woke. He wasn't in the tower. No conference table. No coffee mug rested near his hand, and Tony wasn't arguing with him. It was only a dream, and a cruel one. His dreams were made sharp and realistic by his perfect memory. He groaned at the pain of having familiar faces, familiar voices fade away again. The angry man's words filtered into understanding as he remembered that his current reality was a thousand years before the Avengers existed.

"Who are you? Get out of my home! Why do you sleep near my daughter?!"

In the near-dark of early dawn, Steve rolled to his side, then his knees. The sharp, jagged edge of a stone spear tip prodded at his neck the entire time he made his way out of the home. This was obviously the father of Braves the Dark, husband of Fallen Petals. No way was he going to fight with the agitated man in his own home. A flush of adrenaline cleared the drowsiness from Steve's mind when several other men surrounded him outside the home and put spear tips to his skin.

"Why are you in my home?" the man asked him again.

The forest and the village were beautiful in the mist of early morning gloom, but it would not be wise to pay attention to anything except the irate members of the returned hunting party. These men were shorter than him, but they were many. They held their spears precisely between his ribs, under his sternum, to the sides of his throat where his pulse beat. They were not trained fighters, but they were master hunters and knew exactly where the kill points were on anything that breathed.

"The fishers found me and Blue Smoke Woman said I should help Braves the Dark while I am here among the people," Steve tried his best to say.

"He is an imbecile. He speaks like a slow child. Your great-mother makes charity again," one of the men said to the irate father.

"My people are far away. My words are different. I only now learn your words. Please have mercy," Steve said humbly.

Sure, he could put these guys down for a dirt nap before their spears hit the ground, but he wouldn't. As a guest, he needed to be on his best behavior. Steve figured that if they were going to try to kill him they would have probably already done so. If he was a father, he would be angry to come home and find a strange man sleeping near his daughter, under the same roof as his wife. A spear dug deeper between two of his ribs and a warm trickle of blood tickled down his skin.

"Father! This is Bear of the North. Elder Wild Wind brought him into the village, and huma named him. She said that he is to help me," Braves the Dark said.

She hurried from the door and Steve felt her fingertips grope for him. He wanted to shrug her away, but was concerned that any sudden moves on his part would be misinterpreted. He grimaced when Braves the Dark came to stand against his front as a human shield, the men's spears moving aside from her.

"I need no woman to stand for me," Steve grumbled.

"Have you taken a husband while I was gone hunting, daughter?" the man asked.

"No. Ask huma. The idea was hers," she said.

Steve stepped sideways out from behind her, more toward the other men. Spears came to bear again, but half-heartedly. Apparently the men of the village knew that Blue Smoke Woman was prone to making trouble of this sort.

Braves the Dark's father frowned at Steve. Braves the Dark frowned in his direction for him being unappreciative of her protection. The other hunters smiled or shook their head at him, and they went away to their homes. They had the smell of men long on the trail, sharp with the tang of old perspiration. Steve noted that there were bundles piled in front of the longhouse, across the way. A few women and older people sorted through the bundles the hunters had brought home.

"Go in and wake your mother. I hunger for other than meat," the man told his daughter.

He looked to Steve again, but said nothing to him. He turned and walked toward Blue Smoke Woman's home. Steve came along beside him, and the man startled to see him there. His hand hefted his spear a little more, but he hardened his jaw and continued on.

"I will leave if you say," Steve told him.

"Uma," the man called.

Wolf growled from inside.

Steve heard Blue Smoke Woman chuckle. He blew out a breath that would have been a laugh. The old woman had known this rude moment would happen. She was getting a laugh at his expense.

"Blunt your spears, Bitter Root. This large one is a gift, sent to help the people. I have seen it so," Blue Smoke Woman said as she came to the door.

She gripped the doorskin in a bony fist and held it tight to her side so that Wolf could not edge around her to get to her visitors.

"You have seen many things which no one else witnessed the passing of. Why does he stay under my roof?" Bitter Root challenged his grandmother.

"Time is no man's servant. Many of my sights will not come to pass until after we are all dust. This one helps us. It is a blessing to have him in your home, and you should see it so," the old woman insisted.

"This is more scheming for Braves the Dark. Their eyes are both broken! This one's skin is pale and weak. Their children would be a liability," Bitter Root complained.

"Nothing is wrong with my skin and my eyes are very good," Steve said.

Bitter Root looked at him in the brightening light. Steve stared at him sharply. The man raised his hand and waved it back and forth. Steve made sure to follow the motion with his eyes. Gut instinct urged him to act.

In a fraction of a moment, Steve snatched the man's wood-hafted spear and threw it across the green. It neatly embedded in a tree trunk across the way, having flown through an ornamental hoop that hung from the tree branch. The haft vibrated dead-center of the hoop. It was an incredible distance, but the spear stuck fast in the bark.

"Aiy!" Bitter Root exclaimed.

People looked over at them, seeking the direction the thrown spear had come from. Steve lifted a hand, waved and smiled a little. They looked at him, then back to the spear, then to him again.

"Your arm is good, too," Bitter Root admitted.

"I will hunt. I will help your family. If you will have me," he promised.

Bitter Root nodded.

He stared at Steve incredulously for a moment longer, then he turned to walk across the green to get his spear.

"Eh, you are forgetting," Blue Smoke Woman complained, a pleased smile in her voice.

Bitter Root turned back and bent to hug his grandmother. Steve bit his lips against a smile. As he'd been embarrassed to have Braves the Dark protect him from the hunter's spears, he was certain that Bitter Root was not happy showing affection for his grandmother in front of him.

Steve walked with the man across the green. Bitter Root pulled free his spear and frowned at its stone tip. Steve grimaced. The force of biting into tree bark had snapped off its sharp point.

"I'm sorry to have ruined your spear," he apologized.

Bitter Root shrugged and handed it to Steve.

"No matter. You will fix it. Throw it again," the man said.

"What should I hit?" he asked.

"There," Bitter Root pointed, "that piece of bark."

Steve winced. It would be a tough target. The chunk of bark was an even farther distance away and lying flat on the ground. It would require an upward launch of the spear then an exact arc down to the target. He broadened his stance, drew back his arm, and felt for the wind speed and direction on his exposed skin.

By now, people were watching intently. Steve made the throw and watched with satisfaction. As soon as the spear reached the height of its arc, he knew the throw was good. The chunk of bark he'd aimed for kicked up in two pieces, then fell back down into the leaves. The spear stuck into the soft soil of the forest floor at an angle.

"I will hunt," Steve said again.

Bitter Root nodded. Red Bead, the oldest boy from the fishing expedition, retrieved the thrown spear. He jogged over to the older man with it and gave it to him. Howls the Wind and Deer Runner also came over and talked quickly and excitedly to Bitter Root. Their words were almost too jumbled and fast for Steve to understand, but the gestures about the huge sturgeon helped.

The boys walked with them back to the home of Fallen Petals. Steve and Bitter Root went inside, and Braves the Dark was happy to hear that her father had accepted him. Breakfast was on. It was more of the stew from last night, reheated over the fire with more meat and vegetables added. Steve was incredibly thankful to have it.

That day Steve sat with the old men while the returned hunters slept. Elder Wild Wind was kind enough to show him how to unlash the spear tip he'd broken and how to replace it with an undamaged one. The father of another of his fishing buddies, One with Stones, gave him the newly made stone tip.

"I can learn," Steve said, and he lifted the spear tip to indicate the craftsmanship used on the stone.

The man made a skeptical face and waved him off, as if it was no large debt to provide him with the stone to fix Bitter Root's spear. Mostly, Steve was glad to sit and listen for hours to the older men talk. Their words were not in a rush, so the listening was easy and helpful. By the end of the afternoon Steve could hear the improvement of his language skills. He loved the rich, unique tones of their voices and the easy way they made the difficult sounds. It was a challenge to move his mouth in the same ways to pronounce things properly, but he made the effort.

"You learn quickly," Braves the Dark told him that evening on their way to bring Blue Smoke Woman her supper.

"I try," Steve grinned a little.

She could not see his grin, but she likely heard it in his voice from the way she smiled back at him.

Bitter Root and Fallen Petals were freshly bathed by the time the home was secured and darkened for the evening. Steve held himself still in awkward unease while the soft sounds of the man making love to his wife carried on the quiet of the night. Did Braves the Dark hear? Or was it only because of his enhanced senses that he was forced to intrude on the couple's moment? The brief vocal sounds at the end made him squirmingly uncomfortable. Things got quiet, and then Steve heard Fallen Petals say her first kind words since he'd met the woman. He was glad that she was sweet to her husband, at least.

* * *

The next day began early. Steve was looking forward to going with the men to the longhouse to listen to their hunting stories, but Fallen Petals expected him to go along to the village fields. Steve carried a large urn of strong-smelling fertilizer through the forest and to their cropland.

Braves the Dark walked beside him with her hand on his arm.

"Do you usually go along to help with the farming?" Steve asked her.

"to help with the _growing_ ," Braves the Dark corrected him.

"Growing," Steve repeated the word.

"Yes. My hands are as good as anyone's," she smiled and twiddled her free hand at him.

Steve found himself flustered. He wanted to apologize for the implication that she would not be useful at the task because of her blindness, but his words fled him. He made sputtering, senseless sounds instead.

Braves the Dark laughed at him. Her arm threaded through his as they walked and the side of her soft breast pressed above his elbow. She smiled in the sunshine she couldn't see and turned her face to the warmth. He barely remembered to guide her steps around a root that protruded from the path on the forest floor.

"I've tripped over that root many times. Thank you, Steve," she said.

"I'm happy to help," he said in their version of 'you're welcome.'

Fallen Petals showed him where to set the heavy urn down when the group of women from the village reached the corn field. She removed the lid. Steve leaned to see what was inside that smelled so pungent. It smelled like dead animal, dead fish, mineral dirt, and ammonia. The contents of the jar were crumbly and black, and he could indeed see small bones and fish scales in the stuff.

"She knows how to do the weeding. You go behind and put the fertilizer and cover it. Crashing Clouds will put the water," Fallen Petals told him.

She walked away to work with the other women on the far side of the large corn field. Steve looked around. The sunny clearing in the woods wasn't planted in neat rows like modern agriculture. There were little hills everywhere with about five young green corn stalks on each hill. The tendrils of some more delicate plants twined up the corn stalks, and larger vines with rounded leaves crept along the ground.

"You're standing there. Lead me to the first hill," Braves the Dark said.

Steve hurried to do so. He saw that some other women knelt down to reach and tend among the roots of the corn and the vining plants. Braves the Dark did the same. She felt of the corn stalks briefly and gently, then she knelt and bent over to work among the plants. Her efficient hands pulled out little weed plants and tossed them aside to wither in the hot sun.

"How do you know which ones are the weeds?" Steve asked.

"Anything that's not bean or squash or corn is a weed. I pull it. I tossed a snake once," she told him.

"It didn't bite you?" he asked.

She shook her head while she worked.

"No. I'm too fast. I could be bitten, but it didn't happen that time. Small creatures like to hide in the shade on hot days. I'm done with this hill. Are you going to put the fertilizer? Crashing Clouds?" Braves the Dark asked.

She stood up.

"I am here," the other young woman said.

They both stood and waited for Steve to do his part. He stepped back to the large clay urn of smelly material. He looked down into it with distaste. He heard Crashing Clouds make a frustrated sound. He was likely taking too long, but he didn't know how to do this. It seemed a simple task, but he didn't want to put his hand into the stuff. Sure, he was accustomed to gore in battle, but fresh gore was a bit more pleasant than this mostly decomposed stuff.

"Here. Put this much for each hill," Crashing Clouds told him.

She walked up beside him and scooped a moderate handful of the black crumbly substance from the urn, bones, scales and all. She took his hand, held it out, cupped his fingers together and dropped the handful into his palm. Steve looked at it and got a feel for the amount. He nodded.

Alright. If a pretty young girl could do this, he could suffer through it. He found an empty gourd from the pile someone had carried to the field and scooped it full of the fertilizer like a big bowl. From there, the work went on in a pleasantly monotonous fashion.

Braves the dark took a minute to get the weeding done on each hill, he dropped a handful of fertilizer into the hollow in the middle of the hill and covered it with plenty of loose dirt. Crashing Clouds came along and ladled a dipper of water on top of what they'd done.

By noon they were all glistening with sweat. Steve's left hand was a nasty mess. He'd given up trying to be prissy about the fertilizer. He had fish scales and who knows what smeared onto his skin. He'd been poked under a fingernail by a sharp little bone, and he could see the dirt the puncture had tattooed under his nail. He never got infections, but it made him wonder about the women, if they did. By the time they'd done a quarter of the field of corn, Steve had noticed everything about the place. There were little ants marching up and down the bean vines. About one out of ten corn stalks looked damaged, like some animal had come and ripped at it and chewed on it. The breeze blew the long strappy corn leaves like green pennant flags. The smell of the fertilizer didn't seem so bad to him now that he was accustomed to it, merely earthy and potent.

All these things he studiously paid attention to in order to prevent himself from gawking at the ladies who worked with him. They worked unselfconsciously in their partial nudity. Their skirts were long enough to cover their bottoms when they bent over, but only just. Their lovely breasts hung and swayed with their movements. Never had he seen women so natural and unbothered about their appearance. They'd tied each other's long hair back out of the way at the beginning, but that only served to display their smooth golden skin to better effect.

Crashing Clouds grinned and spoke with a tease in her voice.

"Bear of the North likes to look at your chest, and then he turns pink," she said.

Braves the dark grubbed among the plants but turned to look in his direction. Her eyes might be sightless, but they still crinkled at the corners when she smiled.

"Why do you like to look? Did your mother not feed you?" she asked.

Steve made a pained face and turned his face to scowl at Crashing Clouds.

"She did. Women don't… I mean, where I'm from, women always cover their tops. I'm sorry. You're all very nice to look at. I try not to, but-" Steve said the best he could.

Both young women giggled.

"You should look if it pleases you. The men might tease you for acting juvenile, but we're all women here," Braves the Dark said.

"This is women's work, isn't it?" he asked suspiciously.

"It was, but you carried the heavy urn so we got here in half the time. The men are all smoking in the longhouse today, so you aren't missing much by being with us instead. You are fun to tease, so I'm glad you're here," Crashing Clouds told him.

Steve knew he was probably pouting, but he couldn't help it. First, Braves the Dark had defended him from the men's spears, and now all the men in the village knew he was out doing women's work.

"When will I hunt with the men?" he asked.

"When next they go, I would think," Crashing Clouds answered.

He buried a handful of fertilizer and she poured the water.

"They think me not a man," he said.

"They do not. There's no shame in being different. Brook's husband doesn't hunt at all. He does the beadwork. That was huma's job before her hands began to hurt her so much," Braves the Dark told him.

Steve kept his peace and worked on until midday. Crashing Clouds gave him water to wash his pungent hand, but he could still smell the fertilizer on his skin while he ate his dried fish and squash chips. He would not have enjoyed the vegetable flavor of the squash chips but he was too hungry to care much about flavor.

The group lounged on the cool grass in the shade for the hottest hours of the afternoon. Braves the Dark encouraged him to go with her a little distance away from the others. They worked on words and sentences and how to say things he had not heard yet. His eyes helplessly wandered her torso, then he looked back to her face. She was so pretty, it was like being in a museum and trying not to look at the art.

"Your parents. Last night. I heard them…sharing love?" he said.

She smiled at his awkward wording.

"Mating. Yes, I hear them sometimes. They are not vulgar and loud like Rushing Bird and his new wife. Do you try to tell me that your people do not mate? That can't be true," she said with a confused crinkle to her brow.

"We do, though not in the same space with other people," he explained.

"Do they mate outside like the animals, then? Where are people to sleep, if mating can't be done under a roof with others?" she wondered.

"Our homes have many spaces under one roof. People sleep in different spaces," he tried to explain. Already Steve was sorry for his questions. He could see how this topic could lead him into having to explain many things which were difficult to say without mentioning drastic technology differences.

"You must think us very crude," Braves the Dark supposed.

"No. Your way is understandable. I was only surprised," he said.

His new friend nodded drowsily and lay back in the grass. If she wanted to sleep like the others around them he would be quiet so she could do so. He lay down on his back and stared up at the leaves of the tree above him.

It still struck him as odd to see no condensation trails from aircraft streaked across the sky. His mind kept expecting to hear the sound of a city bus or of a cab's horn honking but there was none of that. There was the sound of the light breeze in the trees and of birdsong. A large, fuzzy bumblebee trundled about among the wildflowers near his head. He couldn't sleep like the women did. Someone should keep alert. Was there no danger at all here?

"Your sigh is enough to heave the mountains. Are you sad? Are you lonely for loved ones at your home? A wife? Children?" Braves the Dark asked gently.

"I have friends. I'm lonely for them and I worry for them, but there is no wife, no children," he told her.

"Your beard is full and you have the beginnings of tiny wrinkles beside your eyes. You are no boy. Why is there no wife for you? No children? What is the worry for your friends?" she wondered lazily.

"We are fighters, protectors, my friends and me. When I was lost from them we were in a great battle. I don't know how the battle ended, whether my friends lived or died, or how many people of my village died. I want to go back to help them, but I don't know how. I've had no time for a wife or children. What I do is too dangerous to involve family," he told her.

"You fight? Your skin is so smooth. You should have more scars if you fight. My far cousin among the North peoples, he is covered in scars. You don't seem like a fighter," she said.

"My skin heals well and quickly. Here, feel of my arm where Wolf chewed at me. It's smooth already. I would have many scars except for my quick healing. Scars on top of scars," he said.

Braves the Dark reached out her hand and he guided her fingers over the spots where Wolf had savaged his arm. Her brows went down skeptically, so he offered her his other arm to feel of too. She then used both hands to feel both his arms at once, as if the injuries could run and hide from one arm to the other. A look of wonder passed over her features, then she shrugged as if his healing was merely another part of his strangeness along with his paleness and his yellow hair. She took her hands back and relaxed her arms over her head.

"There is no reason to fight among the turtles. We are a peaceful people," she said, then "was the fighting so bad when you left your home? Do you think so many died? Men usually squabble until their pride is satisfied and then they sit to have supper together."

Steve chuffed a laugh at the absurdity of how different her idea was from the reality he'd left behind.

"Our tools, our weapons are different from those of the turtle people. Many, many attackers came to us unexpectedly. Like your village, most of my people are unarmed and unprepared for fighting. Those who came for us were not prideful or angry. They wanted to destroy us, maybe to take our land. Their weapons were terrible. Many, many died. We were winning, but at great cost. Then the strange weather came and took me away. I am unable to help my friends," he said.

"I'm sorry to hear that there was so much death. You very much want to go back home. You are not merely a wandering soul telling funny stories. I can hear in your voice that what you say is true. If your friends can find you, you will be happy to go home," she said.

She frowned, as if already she was attached to him and would miss him. She was nice, but they barely knew each other. She needed to understand him before she developed any affection for him.

"If they find me, I will go instantly. I must. My people need me," Steve told her with conviction.

Braves the Dark nodded. She looked disappointed, but she respected his commitment to his home, his people.

"I shouldn't tell you these things. It's not right to darken your thoughts with my troubles," he grumbled.

"My world is darkened. You make pictures for me with your words. I don't mind," she said.

"How do you have pictures? How can you think of the things I say and imagine them?" Steve asked.

It was probably insensitive to ask about her blindness, but he felt that she was an easy, open person with her thoughts. Her face showed no offense from his words.

"I was able to see when I was little. I know what red is, and blue and green and purple and yellow. I know my mother's grumpy face and what a fish and a tree and a mountain path look like. One day in the winter my head hurt and my eyes felt wrong. From that day I lost my sight bit by bit. Until a few summers ago I could tell light from dark, but not anymore. Everything is dark. I have seen smiles and frowns. If I feel your smile, I can imagine it. You are a handsome man, aren't you?" she asked.

"I…I've been called handsome," Steve stuttered, not used to having to admit it, but for her he felt he had to verify her perceptions, "I think I'm only strange here because no one else has yellow hair."

He let her sleep for the rest of the afternoon heat. They drank water from the gourds, then continued their work in the corn field. Steve grimaced at having to put his hand in smelly fertilizer again, but he saw the need for someone to do the job. Since he was the new guy, he got the worst job, he figured.

"What damages the corn?" he asked when they were almost done with their task for the evening.

"Raccoons. They come in the night while we sleep. Some years it is bad and other years there aren't so many raccoons. This is a bad year. We thought we'd planted enough corn, but there may be hunger this winter. The animals had many kits because of the mild weather," Crashing Clouds told him.

Steve looked around the field for trees with suitable perches and a clear view of the corn.

When the work was done and every hill of corn had been weeded, fertilized, and watered, they walked back to the village. The fertilizer urn was more than half empty, so it was easy to set down and pick up again.

"Why do you stop to gather rocks?" Braves the Dark asked him when she heard the distinctive clacking and grinding of the fist-sized stones he'd collected along the way.

"I have an idea," Steve told her.

She waited to hear an explanation, but Steve only smiled and continued guiding her home.

Blue Smoke Woman was waiting for the field workers with supper. Bitter Root was probably still at the longhouse, but they ate anyway. Venison stew with wild rice was delicious after a long day of activity. Steve thought while he ate. Should it really be called wild rice when all the rice was wild?

"Fallen Petals, does anyone eat raccoon?" he asked.

The lady of the house made a pained face. Blue Smoke Woman smiled at him, her deep wrinkles disappearing from the apples of her cheeks. It seemed that the old lady knew something, and she answered instead of Fallen Petals.

"We will take raccoon if there is opportunity. A meal of raccoon means that the venison and the fish last longer into winter. The flavor is not ideal, but thrift is wisdom," she told him.

He nodded thoughtfully.

* * *

Steve waited until the family was asleep, then he took up his gathered stones. He made his way under the light of a half-moon back to the corn field. There were no raccoons in the corn that night. At least by spending the night perched in a tree he wasn't tempted by sleeping near a half-naked lady, and he didn't have to listen to Bitter Root and Fallen Petals have sex.

These last two days among the turtle people had kept his mind busy with the learning of language and customs. He'd noticed many things.

The youngest children often wore no clothing at all. Out of toddlerhood, the kids wore small loincloths like everyone else.

Sometime around puberty, girls started wearing skirts instead of loincloths and white cords around the waist. Some had more cords than others, as many as three. The younger teens seemed to have more white cords. Slightly more mature girls, like the ones who had first bathed him, had no cord around their waist, or they had more natural-colored brown cords as they got older. Braves the Dark had the most cords he'd seen on a girl. Married women didn't wear cords anymore, and usually had infants or little children about them. Old ladies like Blue Smoke Woman wore beaded or painted shawls on their tops.

Young boys were completely unornamented unless they happened to have an accidental scar from a mishap. Older guys in their teens all had a simple black tattoo of some sort on their chest. As men grew older and more accomplished, more intricate tattoos and purposeful ceremonial scarring adorned their skin. It seemed that the less hair a man had, the more prestigious his standing among the people. Only little boys had long, flowing hair. In contrast, women of the turtle people took great pride in their shiny, thick hair. Longer hair seemed to be better for the women.

There was one woman in the village who was completely shorn bald. No one liked her, no one spoke to her, and she seemed to hang around the fringes of the village. Steve was tempted to be kind to her, but there was probably a reason she was shunned. The woman made eye contact with no one, and she was always busy at some menial task like scraping hides or carrying firewood.

Keeping watch over the corn field at night gave him time to think away from all the mental business of learning to adapt to his hosts.

He pondered space-time and time travel. He wondered if Heimdall could see him. In a momentary flight of fantasy, he called out to Heimdall and asked the man to tell his friends that he was safe. Steve figured that if Thor's people's advanced understanding of things could bring him home, they already would have. The efforts of Tony and Bruce, Jane and whichever other outstanding scientific minds modern Earth had would be his way home. He knew Tony Stark wouldn't give up, because his father Howard had never really given up looking for him in the ice.

What gave him additional hope was that the Bruneii portal casters were able to send him back in time in the first place. If it could be done, it could probably be undone. If they'd captured one of the portal casters alive, which would have been a smart thing to do once his team noticed he was gone, Natasha and Clint would have somebody to work on. Steve didn't like the idea of someone being tortured for his sake, even an enemy combatant, but it would be a larger issue than recovering one Steve Rogers to his proper time. The people of his time would be afraid of more portals, more Bruneii invaders. Gathering information and understanding of the enemy would be critical, and Natasha was the best at that. Along with Jarvis's capabilities, he continued to have faith in his team.

Sam would keep their spirits up and apply his considerable skills to the problem. Sam would likely keep looking for Bucky in his absence. If Buck was found and came into play, they'd never stop looking for him, for certain. Of them all, Steve found himself missing Sam's steady friendship and Thor's advanced wisdom the most.

Near dawn when there was still no activity from garden predators, Steve came down from his tree. He pushed his body to perform to near exhaustion with good old fashioned calisthenics. Survival wasn't very physically demanding for him and he felt that he might be getting lazy. He hadn't wanted to exercise before coming to the village of the turtle people because activity made his body demand more calories and adequate food had been in short supply.

When he walked back into the village that early morning, Blue Smoke Woman was talking to an obviously upset Braves the Dark outside the older woman's door. The old lady made a pleased sound when she saw him and she waved him over toward her home.

"There he is alive and well, child. Not eaten by bears or cats or wolves after all," the old lady said to her great-granddaughter.

Steve came over and greeted them both. Braves the Dark turned to his voice and seemed to look right at him.

"I was concerned," she said.

"No need. I went to watch the corn. If I can keep the raccoons from eating it, there will be more food for the people," Steve said.

Braves the Dark reached out and felt for his hands. When she felt them empty, she raised a brow at him.

"No raccoons last night. I will go again tonight," he said.

"But when will you sleep?" the young woman asked.

"If I sleep in the heat of the day like you do, that will be all I need," he answered her.

"It will not!" she argued.

Blue Smoke Woman was smiling that sly, knowing smile again. Steve suspected that Braves the Dark had motives other than his sleep deprivation and well-being.

"Go home, girl. It is early," Blue Smoke Woman said.

Braves the Dark frowned, but she went. Steve wondered how she would make her way. He saw that she progressed to her mother's home slowly and carefully, feeling the worn path with her feet so that she didn't wander off into the loose leaf litter on either side.

"Come. We will talk," Blue Smoke Woman told him.

She held her doorskin open for him while she braced for balance against the sturdy doorframe. Wolf growled at him from inside. The woman hushed him, but the growling came again as Steve stepped into the home. Wolf made to lunge for him, but Steve grabbed the animal from the air by his scruff and shook him. Blue Smoke Woman said nothing as Steve held the struggling wolf in mid-air and stared into its eyes until it stopped struggling and whined. Wolf looked away. Steve set him down and he slunk back to his place in the furs.

The old woman lowered herself to a place by her cheery little fire and smiled at Steve.

"No man I know of could hold up Wolf as if he was a small pup. You are very strong," she said.

"I am," Steve agreed.

Blue Smoke Woman waved a hand across the fire ring at him and he sat. They had fried corn cakes and some kind of tea for breakfast. When it was plain by his belly's grumbling that Steve was still hungry, the woman gestured to a lumpy sack which hung at the wall behind him. Inside were tree nuts. While they talked, Steve cracked nuts and fed himself.

"You do not look tired from having watched the corn all night," she observed.

"I need little sleep. Much food," Steve agreed in between chewing the sweet, fatty nutmeats.

"Perhaps if you slept more you could eat less?" she suggested.

"I am not made that way. My mind keeps me awake until it doesn't," he said.

"Why do you watch the corn? Do you not enjoy your bed near Braves the Dark?"

"No. I don't want a woman right now. I will not use her and then leave her when my friends come. As I said, I eat much. Whatever I can do to help the people with food, I will do," Steve told her.

"Your words are much improved. You learn far faster than new wives," Blue Smoke Woman said.

"I speak the words of many different peoples. I find it enjoyable to learn. Why are new wives required to learn new words?" he wondered.

Finally, he was beginning to feel full. He set the nuts aside and drank more tea.

"Men do not take a wife from among the girls of their home village. Such a practice would make weak children. Sons stay near their father's house. Twice yearly, at the planting and the harvest dances, girls select their husbands and go home to the man's village to begin their new lives as women. If the man will have the girl who wants him, that is. Different peoples have different words," she explained.

Steve nodded. The marriage-making sounded kind of arbitrary, but at least the lady did the choosing. He was fast learning the ways of these people, but there was more to learn.

"The woman with no hair. She is being punished. What did she do?" Steve asked.

Blue Smoke Woman pursed her wrinkled lips thoughtfully, but then she answered him.

"We do not usually speak of it, except for those who need to know. That woman was caught trying to get children from another woman's husband. Now, she works to help the offended wife in whatever ways the wife demands. This lasts for a year," she explained.

"And what of the man?" Steve asked pointedly.

Blue Smoke Woman smiled.

"He is sent to the wife's father to work, where he will likewise be shamed for a year and work at the tasks no one wants."

Steve winced. He'd had no idea there had been such punishments for infidelity.

"Why is the punishment so harsh?" he asked.

"Should it not be? Fathers are required to provide meat for their children. A man can only bring in so much. No woman wants a husband to have to provide for some other woman's child. It would take away from the food for her children. Some years are lean and even children with a good father go hungry. In such years, a child born outside of marriage often is left with no support and will die. It is a matter of life or death for the children," Blue Smoke Woman said.

Lots of questions, lots of possible solutions piled up on Steve's tongue, but he kept his mouth shut. These people had lived for thousands of years without his thoughts or advice. He knew it was not his place to think he should try to change them. He would feel horrible if he suggested a different way of life and people died trying to follow his ideas, if they would even listen to him in the first place. This was far from modern America. He suspected that death was common, life expectancies low. Children were often the first to die when resources were scarce. He'd seen the truth of that in Europe in the 40's. He set aside his displeasure at the harsh social punishments as something he was powerless to change. Indeed, if he tried to befriend the bald woman, it might make her punishment worse.

"What of young people who make children before they are married? Surely boys and girls in the same village develop affections for each other?" Steve wondered.

"If the families are known to be of greatly different bloodlines, there is a wedding ceremony. If the bloodlines are too close and the baby is sickly, the boy is sent away with the child. Any boy who respects his father's name will not trifle within close bloodlines. The price is too high to pay. The people must be strong or we will perish," she said.

Steve nodded. It was interesting but harsh, how these people managed themselves. Their natural environment was unforgiving of weakness. The people seemed mostly healthy and happy, so it likely wasn't as horrible as it sounded.

Blue Smoke Woman told him many things. She asked him many things which taxed his mental agility in answering her truthfully. Steve was relieved when Bitter Root called from outside. Wolf lifted his head and growled softly.

"Bear of the North, are you studying to become an elder so soon? Come out. We hunt," the man said.


End file.
